The thing about parenthood that weighs on me most is the responsibility to my children to “Train [them] in the way [they] should go;” (Proverbs 22:6). Ultimately I will not be responsible for their life choices, but it is the responsibility of my husband and I to lay a good foundation so that, by God’s grace, they may come to love the Lord and to live a life giving glory to Him.

This is a matter of daily prayer and practice. I do my best to pray for them each day, and we try to facilitate a household where God is at the center of everything. We know that because He loves us, God disciplines his children (Hebrews 12:6), and I need to love my kids by giving them discipline. But – now I know this is shocking – disciplining a toddler is stinkin’ hard.

Our oldest child’s favorite word is “no,” and she delights to test the limits of EVERYTHING. To get attention, she shrieks as loud as she can. The thing that makes me craziest? She smiles when she knows I’m angry. It is SO much easier to just let things go. It’s SO much easier to let her watch “Baby Shark” over and over again on YouTube rather than enforcing our “no screens” rule. It is SO much easier to let her run roughshod over everything rather than asking her to behave the way she is capable of behaving. I know it doesn’t get any easier. And this is just the beginning.

Over the last week as I’ve been reading further in 2 Samuel and Kings, I’ve come to realize just how merciful God is to parents to have recorded in his Word stern warnings about parenting. The story of Eli still floats through my mind all the time, but David – the man after God’s own heart – also provides a lot of warning.

David takes multiple wives, and has many children. So many children, apparently, it is difficult to be a fully-present father to them. This is highly evident in the story of Amnon, who rapes his half-sister Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. This should have never happened in the first place. David should have been around enough to ask, “Why is Amnon behaving this way,” when Amnon started “[making] himself ill.” (2 Sam 13:2) But he wasn’t, and a disgusting injustice was perpetrated against Tamar.

David is king. It is his responsibility to execute God’s justice in this situation (the penalty under the Mosaic Law for incest is death). David is Tamar’s father. It’s his job to protect her and her honor. But “When David heard of all these things, he was very angry.” (2 Sam 13:21) The Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint add “But he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, since he was his firstborn.”

So Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, murders Amnon. David again withholds punishment, and even lets Absalom return to Jerusalem, where there Absalom overthrows his father and attempts to reign as king. He dies as a result, but not for lack of attempts on David’s part to prevent his son’s death.

In 1 Kings, David’s fourth-born son, Adonijah senses a similar opportunity. In David’s old age, “…Adonijah … exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king.’ [Instead of Solomon] And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, ‘Why have you done thus and so?'” (1 Kings 1:5-6).

His father never displeased him by asking, “excuse me, what are you doing?” Woof.

David’s kids were all adults when these things happened. They knew they could get away with their actions because they could expect David to either not pay attention or to not follow through with a consequence, would be my guess. They were a product of their rearing.

So I have David’s example before me, as a warning to be diligent in my parenting – even when it’s hard – to protect and discipline and lead those whom God has placed under my care. But David’s example is also an encouragement. First, because his example is recorded in the Bible at all (as an aside, what other religion includes such terrible depictions of their heroes? Not many), and importantly because God still prospered David in spite of his sins. There were consequences for his actions, but David kept his heart set on God, and God had mercy. I am so thankful that God gave us His word to instruct us in this most important work, and His mercy for when we fall short.

It seems like I start every blog post by saying that I’ve been meaning to write for one, two, three, six, however many weeks and keep getting side-tracked. But, for a change, what’s been keeping me from this particular post is having two kids under two. Usually it’s because I haven’t been reading my Bible and don’t have much to say, but WHEW! I have been reading daily and WOW do I have a lot I’ve been seeing lately! But let me first start with this:

One of the podcasts to which I regularly listen Stand To Reason‘s weekly broadcast. The host, Greg Kokul, sometimes challenges his listeners to follow a yearly Bible plan. I’ve also heard him say that sometimes his daily readings have been timely; he would read some verses and in close proximity to his reading, that subject would come up in his life somewhere. Jack and I have actually talked about this phenomenon happening in Jack’s life, too.

But when I first heard Greg issue this challenge, I thought, “Well, you know, I’m in a regular Bible study and reading my Bible MOSTLY daily, so, I’m fine.” But, of course, BSF is only during the school year which leaves three months where – let’s be honest – almost no reading takes place. So a few months ago when Greg mentioned it on the podcast again, I thought, why not? I printed a read-at-your-own-pace plan from Ligonier and started reading in addition to my daily BSF homework. (If nothing else, it’s super satisfying to my hyper-competitive soul to be checking off boxes as I complete chapters)

I started off in Zechariah, and after a few days something related to what I’d read in Zechariah was discussed on the STR podcast. And a day after that, The Gospel Coalition published a talk that showed up in my social media feed on Zechariah. I thought about what Jack and I had talked about, and what Greg Kokul has said from time to time on the air, hm-ed to myself, and moved on.

My strategy with my daily reading was to go from an Old Testament book to a New Testament book, so after Zechariah I went to Matthew. Jack, meanwhile, has been reading the book of Hosea, which he randomly mentioned to me one morning.

A few nights ago before bed I was reading The Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13 and was reminded of the verses in Romans where Paul says “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory,” (9:22-23), which I read in BSF last year. So I went back to Romans 9 to refresh my mind with those verses.

Jack was sitting next to me in bed when I burst out laughing, so I started reading out loud to him. The very next verses in the book of Romans are a quotation from Hosea:

“Even to us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people,” and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved…” (9:24-25)

I wish I could say that because of all of these funny and delightful coincidences, I’ve gained some new and amazing insights into God’s word. I can say that I am better acquainted with God’s word – with Him – in these readings. I think that this other stuff has come up because He is blessing my learning. And not only has He blessed the learning, He’s blessed the time in my day.

For a long, LONG, time, I have struggled with ordering my time and procrastination. It is in my nature to sit on the couch and do nothing whenever possible. But over the last few weeks I’ve found that I have motivation to do not only the daily tasks that keep our household running, but also larger projects to get us better organized and even to spruce up the house a bit. This is time BESIDES the twenty-or-so minutes I spend reading the Bible daily. GUYS. I have found TIME. WITH TWO BABIES IN THE HOUSE. DO YOU KNOW HOW WEIRD THAT IS???

Anyone who’s spent time in a church has probably heard the “I stepped out in faith and gave more money than I thought I could to the church/mission/whatever, and somehow God blessed me with a raise/some other unforeseen increase in cash flow,” story. Lord knows I’ve heard it MANY times. And, go figure, it turns out God blesses the time we give him, too.

So praise be to God today and every day, for all the ways he increases the resources we give him (whatever they are), and for having mercy on us even when we’re stingy. I’ve been stingy with my time for so long, But that didn’t stop Him from pouring forth all sorts of provision before I started reading my Bible more. He is good all the time – which is definitely easier to see when you’re spending some time with Him daily.