Homeschooling Encouragement

Go here for an encouraging article as a dad reflects on what he's learned by homeschooling.

ht Drew Campbell

Humbled By the War I Cannot Win

Paul Tripp has an excellent personal paraphrase of Romans 7 and Psalm 51 on his website today. Just what I needed today as I have been beset and given in all day to impatience and frustration. Thanks be to God!

Here's an excerpt, go here for the entire thing.

I am thankful for God’s grace, but there is daily evidence that I'm still in need of help.
That battle inside me cannot be solved by
Theology
Strategies
Principles
Techniques
Plans
Preparation
Helpful hints
Outlines
I have been humbled by the war I cannot win.
I have been grieved by desires I cannot conquer.
I have been confronted by actions I cannot excuse.
And I have come to confess that what I really need is rescue.
So, have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love
According to your great compassion
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions
And my sin is always before me.
I embrace the rescue that could only be found in you.
Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Scots Wha Hae

To go along with our reading of The Scottish Chiefs, we're memorizing Robert Burn's "Battle of Bannockburn". Robert Bruce's speech in that poem is the Scottish National Anthem. You can listen to it here, bagpipes and all. You should see E & D recite and act this out on the tramp!

Mark Twain on the Sovereignty of God

...although I seriously doubt he would have meant to honor God with this, yet his Presbyterian upbringing and bedrock presupposition is there.

This is from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, describing the death of Injun Joe and the tiny drip of water in the cave which provided some small comfort to him as he was slowly starving to death.

That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was "news." It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come?