Have You Not Read S3:E14 - Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

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Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

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Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, David Kassin, and we have a recently asked question that we thought was rather interesting and we wanted to broach it to everybody here on the podcast and see what we come up with both from the

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Old and New Testament. The question reads, is spare -the -rod -spoiled -a -child actually telling us to spank our kids?

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My wife and I are in disagreement. Are there other places where Scripture teaches us to hit our kids?

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Michael. Yes, and as one of our brothers here, fellow elder at the church, kind of looked at that word hit as different, it's a different kind of word than the word spank.

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We're thinking about what the Scripture tells us in terms of how to discipline our kids. Obviously there's not a one -size -fits - all, every child is the same, every situation is the same, you always do the same thing.

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Discipline and train and chasten, all these different terms are going to be interested in curtailing the thoughts, the affections, the decision making, the behavior of the child for their good.

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When we look at the book of Proverbs, Proverbs begins with Solomon exhorting his son to embrace the teaching, the wisdom, the training, the chastisement, the rebukes, just all of the wisdom of both father and mother.

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And as we go throughout Proverbs we find many different pithy sayings that give instruction on that relationship between parent and child.

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Parents who love their children will discipline their children, parents who do not love their children leave them alone and have nothing to do with them, right?

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So in what way do loving parents discipline, train, chastise, rebuke their children?

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In Proverbs 23 verses 13 through 14, text says do not withhold discipline from a child, do not withhold discipline from a child.

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You can get the picture of you're not going to withhold food from a child, you're not going to withhold clothing from a child, you're not going to withhold shelter and love and care for a child, you will also are not to withhold discipline from a child.

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This is one of the needs of the child. If you strike him with a rod he will not die, if you strike him with the rod you will save his soul from Sheol, meaning you're preserving the breath of his life from the grave.

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Keep this in mind that when we spank our children, when we strike a child with a rod in an appropriate way, in the right way, we're thinking to ourselves

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I want my child to survive, I want them to live, I want my child to hear me when

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I say stop, don't move, or come here now and that they will obey me.

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If I do not strike him with a rod there's a very high likelihood that we're going to be in a situation where he needs to obey and he won't and it will do great harm to him.

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This is kind of the basic, the base level of why anybody should be disciplining a child. Too many stories that I have heard, heartbreaking stories about little ones who think it's a game to disobey.

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They are not spanked, they are not properly brought up and then they lose their lives because of it.

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Proverbs 13 24 says whoever spares at the rod hates his son but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

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Right now loving somebody is being for them in the right way even if it costs me and it costs something of a parent to have to get up, stop everything, interrupt, take the child aside, explain what was wrong, provide a controlled environment in which corporal punishment is applied appropriately and then the whole situation is wrapped up at the end with further instruction and affirmation of the parental love.

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You know what, who has time for that? Somebody who loves their child has time for that. We're not talking about child does something wrong, you smack him across the face and then you go back to watching your football game.

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That is not the scenario that you just described. You just described a loving father who, and a loving parent in general, who explained, talked to them.

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There's no, you're not even doing it in anger. Even if you are angry, you're not doing it in anger, you're doing it out of love, you're calm, it's disciplined.

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This is the consequences of your action and this is why. Yeah, so that's what we hear, he who loves him is diligent and we think of a word diligent with tough tasks, difficult tasks, and it is a tough thing to do.

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It is a difficult thing to do, to discipline your child. Proverbs 29 verses 15 and 17, the rod and reproof give wisdom.

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The rod and reproof, see they're together, give wisdom. But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

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Children just left to themselves to do whatever they want will bring shame to his mother. How many times do we hear a mother heartbroken?

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Discipline your son and he will give you rest and he will give you delight to your heart. Discipline your son, he will give you rest.

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Now, sons when they are young, they don't give you rest. There's no rest for people who have young boys in the house.

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Oh yes. Well, I wouldn't say that it's not so much rest as it is, you were talking about diligence earlier.

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I think when we're looking at that rest, we're talking about life versus death. I see in this, having given rest, having delight in your heart.

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These are words that seem there's a life being given there or there is life in that and that shame is words that have connotations with death or with some sort of separation from a mother and child.

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And with my boys, correcting them consistently and correcting them often,

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I would say yields more life in the household than death. And I think that's what we're getting here with the

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Proverbs, right? Like most of the time you're going to save that child's life. You're saving his soul from Sheol. Mm -hmm.

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And that diligence and that repetition, especially for young boys early on, and young girls as well, but me having just boys, this is where I'm coming from.

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I understand that that consistency is key to giving them purpose in life and giving them direction in life and giving them life in a way.

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Like I've very rarely ever felt more alive than when I felt the extremes of pain and the extremes of having broken relationships mended.

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Whenever we come to our Father in reconciliation under the blood of Christ, how life -giving is that experience?

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How reinvigorating is that experience? It is characterized by coming up from the grave and being cleansed out of our deadness and sin.

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And in these ways you are giving your son a chance to reconcile with you because they know in their heart that they've done something wrong.

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I can see the shame come over their face when they've done something wrong. I'm giving them an opportunity to tell me the truth of what they've done and to reconcile with them after they've perceived discipline.

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And then the opportunity to go do that thing correctly that they've done wrong. Now you mentioned it, that you know, the paradigm, you know, the way that the model is

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God the Father. Yeah. And how he deals with his children. That is the example that we follow.

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And Michael, I know you're gonna be working towards that point. Yes. So one, the question, you know, we have this spare the rod, spoil the child saying that obviously is derived from Scripture.

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It's an effective summary of what the Bible teaches. I think part of the question that was asked is everybody hanging the idea of spanking your kid on this one verse.

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You know, everyone just quotes this one verse and then, well, one of the reasons to read all these passages is to say this is a well -developed theme.

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This is not just a one -off. And to pick that phrase, it seems to import the least amount of seriousness, right?

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Like if I don't spank them they're just gonna be spoiled. No, they might die, right? They may lose their soul.

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And I think part of picking that phrase as well seems like it's just it's going light on the whole scenario for me.

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Because the child is made in the image of God. Yes. To not discipline the child affects that child's relationship with God.

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Yes. That child's relationship with everybody else in the family, everybody else around them and brings a spoiling way of life not just to that child and their own personal life experiences but in everything around them in the earth upon which they live.

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Yeah. So this is why discipline is important. Again, spanking, striking with the rod in an appropriate way is not the only kind of discipline.

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But it is a fundamental of discipline.

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You can't really talk about disciplining children in a biblical way without addressing this particular subject because it's so ingrained.

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Proverbs 22 15, folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

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You can kind of sense in an agrarian society the chaff and the wheat are bound but beating the wheat the chaff is separated from the wheat and that's an essential discipline to undertake.

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Proverbs 19 18 says discipline your son for there is hope. So remember that when we discipline our children we do so in hope not in despair.

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We do it because we have hope. We know that there are better days ahead of us. Good to remember. It says do not set your heart on putting him to death.

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Don't give up on your child. Don't address your child in disciplining them in a way that tells them there's no hope for you.

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There's no future for you. You frustrated me so much that I think that you're just a lost cause.

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No no no your discipline for the child is always in hope. Love always hopes.

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Hopes all things. Proverbs 20 verse 30 blows that wound cleanse away evil.

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Strokes may clean the innermost parts. Again addressing keeping you know in an earlier time rather than locking a man up for years and years of life creating a professional criminal class when somebody let's say stole something and they got caught they usually got beat in the town square and they were out of work for a month as they tried to recover they couldn't do anything they didn't forget the lesson and they became productive members of society that was the idea.

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And how much more gracious is that than tossing them in a state penitentiary and making them felons for the rest of their life?

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Prison industry prison industry is big business man. Oh yeah yeah you don't get you don't make a lot of money off of a stick.

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You make a lot of money off of prisons so it is not it is not compassionate merciful or humane.

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So we have in the classic Proverbs 22 verse 6 train up a child in the way he should go even when he is old he will not depart from it.

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Now in the original language in the Hebrew this is something that Jay Adams pointed out.

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This is a double -edged proverb and a lot of proverbs like that. So this is the way it reads very basically.

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Train up in the child in the way he would go in the way he would go even when he is old he will not depart from it.

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In other words if you allow the child to dictate the way he wants to go then this is going to be concretized in that child's life.

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So we're kind of sneaking up on a few themes of why do people not raise children like they used to where the assumptions of Christendom were large and fairly ingrained.

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Well what is the what is the pagan conception of paradise? Remove human intervention entirely.

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No humans anywhere that's paradise. Biblical view of paradise is man ruling creation well making making things beautiful and good and setting things right.

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What is the apex of childhood dreams and so on?

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The child gets to do whatever the child wants to do. All the candy you want and everything you want.

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Get catechized by Disney you can be whatever you want to be. Follow your heart. Follow your heart. And that's very different than what the

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Bible has to say about parental responsibility. So one last note on just wise ways to approach disciplining children and again we're not saying that spanking a child is the right thing to do in every situation.

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It's one of the things that is right to do for certain situations and it has to be a part of the whole recipe of raising children.

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And one thing I thought was very helpful Ecclesiastes 8 11 because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil in the

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Christian worldview that informed the establishment of the justice system in our country.

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Speedy justice. Speedy justice. You have a right to what kind of trial? Yep. Speedy trial.

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Well that's Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11 and when you discipline a child the younger they are the more important this is to address something right away is just exponentially more effective.

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So those are just some there's a lot of wisdom there from Proverbs and from Ecclesiastes and the use of the rod and striking the child and again we're not talking about just hitting kids when you get mad.

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You can see all kinds of bad examples of that. Right. And that's not discipline right like we wouldn't even categorize that as discipline at that point that is abusive if we're just mad if we're just exerting ourselves in anger upon our child that's not discipline in the least.

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Yes so we don't just have you know basic good ideas of how to raise children in the

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Bible. The reason why these are good ways to raise children is because they're grounded in who

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God is and what does it mean that He has made us that we are His?

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What does it mean that He is our Father and has made us His children through the work of His Son Jesus Christ?

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What does that mean? That's what informs our raising of our children.

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So we do have instructions in the New Testament about how parents are to raise their children and before we get to those instructions

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I want us to think about the overarching theological reality. So Psalm 103 verse 13 says as a father shows compassion to his children so the

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Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. And this is just one sample of many different passages we could look at you know the the model prayer in Matthew chapter 6 and so on are relating to God as Father.

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And some people have observed that bad relations with fathers often turn into bad theology because people think of God as in light of you know the fathers who failed.

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But we're not left to our experiences to try to understand God. We are given

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His Word to consider who God is and then to correct our understandings and to interpret our experiences by the light of God's Word.

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So when we get to Hebrews chapter 12 we are told to look to Christ consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

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And that's something that children do all the time. You always have to encourage children to continue on. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons.

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Exhortation that addresses you as sons children of God. My son do not regard lightly that the discipline of the

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Lord nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves just like we saw in Proverbs and chastises every son whom he receives.

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It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.

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For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? We talked about it earlier that when

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God, and then this is throughout the scriptures, when God hates someone he leaves them alone, lets them go their own way.

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Yeah, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated, Jacob he hounded, to Esau he said you do you.

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Yeah. Then in effect too if we don't want to use the word those who hated if you're just not his son right if one and one is a son and one is not if you're just not his son simply you're released from any obligation or you're released from any discipline.

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This is true. Or any instruction. When I walk into a room and there are several young men from variety of families and they're all you know 10 11 year old boys and they've been roughhousing and doing something they're not supposed to do in an area they're not supposed to do it and I walk in I loudly address and correct my son.

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Mm -hmm. Yeah. In the process all the other sons are like oh but it's my son whom

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I'm calling out. So what is then and I know you probably you know get to this we addressed it a little bit but what is your response to the idea that violence begets more violence when people spank their children the modern psychological evaluation is that you are teaching your children your young children that your hands aren't for hugging your hands are for hurting and they will take that hurt with them that trauma and they will become abusive as a result.

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How do you respond to the person that says you're just teaching them to be violent?

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That's a good question. I would say that if the kind of spanking that you're doing is violence you're spanking wrong if all striking with an instrument no matter how it's done or what context it is if all striking with an instrument is violence then we should stop building houses right we should we should stop forging steel we should stop putting fences in the ground we should stop doing constructive productive things striking a child is not violence always you can strike a child with a proper instrument in the proper way to do something constructive you're building something in them you're building character in them you're building truth in them you're showing them something that in some situations cannot be taught any other way they're just not going to get it another way.

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And if you were to say that all violence begets other violence you only need to look to the cross to explain otherwise

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I think that there was an extreme amount of violence that went into what happened on the cross and yet it causes us as brothers to beat swords into plowshares and be producers rather than destroyers so holding that in your hands is only violence like they understand a part of mimetic theory but they don't understand what it is to be reconciled by the blood of Christ and the most violent act that we've ever known sure and that of course presupposes that you understand that that was the the violence that was done to him is what you deserved that whole idea of I've been forgiven for so much that makes it easier for me to forgive others and to be merciful when

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I have a better understanding of the mercy that was shown me of course that's you look at it from a biblical worldview then yes

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I would agree with that but the the people who say this are convinced that spanking your child makes them abusive later in life and I think that's because viewing human beings as autonomous babies in a can rather than recognizing human beings in a network of God -ordained relationships wherein there is hierarchy right the state is to punish evildoers and they're going to do so with violence parents are going to discipline their children and they will use spanking which

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I don't think is violence but they're gonna use spanking as part of that discipline process it's their role it's their right and it's and it's good and if you simply remove all of that context of relationships about how we're to love each other rightly and if you remove all that context of relationships then you don't it doesn't make sense to you anymore why do these people get to hit these other people in a

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Marxist worldview the people with power do things against those who don't have the power and so for somebody who has been more discipled in a

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Marxist worldview or draws upon that more they're not going to see any difference between a parent spanking a child and a husband hitting a wife they're not gonna see any difference in that at all they're just look these people are called the oppressors and these these are the oppressed any kind of striking is just an exacerbation of the problem and violence will be getting violence and and so that's if you're coming from a non -biblical non -christian worldview you don't have the context of the relationships and the

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God -ordained hierarchy to even begin to describe what you're looking at but in the biblical worldview that child's negative actions that is a result of sin they have purposely consciously chosen to disobey and of course a two -year -old three -year -old's level of disobedience is far less you know quantitatively speaking than a 18 or 28 year old but it's still the same coming from the same place so the biblical worldview holds people individually accountable for their sin even if they are young yes and the discipline of the parents will teach the child there are consequences to your actions these things matter you may not immediately understand how your sinful act brought hurt or suffering or wrong through that act but by spanking you you're going to associate that and you're going to learn it it's spanking is a form of catechism mm -hmm and it's not something that you stick with forever right we would say it's meant for a specific window of time for the child yeah sure yeah

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I would say that my my dad who you know wasn't always the best example in every respect we knew that he loved us it was always there for us in if he ever hears this podcast dad

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I always knew that you that you loved us because you disciplined us and the times that he was the most angry and he had a temper and I have inherited it he was most angry when we were putting our own lives at risk yes we he was so he was livid because my brother and I were doing something that could have got us killed my sister and I did something with the car that could have gotten us that famous line with the car with the car yes he was so angry we could hear and breathe from the other side of the house oh yeah and and but I know now what we did was so dangerous and so irresponsible it warranted some serious to now at that point we were older so it would make sense we didn't hit us but the anger that was there and the discipline that came afterwards was warranted when we were little we got spanked and we learned not to touch the hot stove we learned not to put and and okay truth time

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I actually put metal instruments inside a power outlet can you walk on I seriously you did this

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I are you not dead how am I not I almost didn't mind it and my dad caught me we were moving into a new house I think it was like seven so you know

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I know better and I've got a fork and yeah he comes up behind me with some piece of wood that he had lying around just he got me and he said it would be that times a thousand yes and I was like okay then

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I then I know I don't need to experience this then so he disciplined you with a literal rod and saved your life and it was constructive

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I now did not feel like I needed to experience what would have happened he told me and I was like yeah

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I believe you man you I'm not gonna I'm not gonna question that wisdom I mean that was that's a there it is a perfect perfect example he didn't do that in anger although it's probably swift mm -hmm oh we had to had to be but it was done out of love it was done out of discipline and it was a lesson you didn't forget so now that you're old you have not departed from it agreed

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I'm assuming you have not put a fork in a wall socket lately no no I haven't really been tempted to recently me neither so I think that if we frame the question in light of how

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God has made us in his image and how God has designed and blessed the family to to operate the relations between husband and wife and parents and children robustly affirmed both in the

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Old Testament and the New Testament and shown with even greater potential for glory in the

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New Covenant with Christ we're not looking at something that is to be cordoned off and so well now that we live in the

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New Covenant we shouldn't spank our children we're still told in the in the

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New Testament that fathers are to bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the

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Lord and any kind of word study of discipline is going to you know spanking is gonna be part of that at a certain point in time for certain situations that's just gonna be a part of that tool set to raise children and at the same time we're encouraged and to not provoke our children to anger in other words to not exasperate them to not make it so that they can never succeed to give them a sense that no matter how hard they try will never be pleased with them right like yes the father disciplines us and we want to be like the father in his fatherhood he also told us who he was well pleased in he also exalted his son when he deserved that exaltation he also encouraged him to do all that he had to do whether in I think we can say he encouraged him to go through everything that he went through even though it was hard and when we take that fatherhood as well that we see him giving to our

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Savior I think we can be much more encouraging to our children and much more constructive to our children as well like because I mean if you try and be constructive on your own without much reference to the father as different I think it's difficult

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I think when I don't when I'm not thinking how would the father encourage me and my woes or my my bitterness or mine unthankfulness you know if your son needs discipline for throwing a fit because he wants a specific thing you get his attention and you say look all around you look what you have been given you don't realize what you've been given you want this one thing and you have it you have abundance just around you and I have to do that with myself all the time and I would have to believe that sometimes our apprehensions when when disciplining our children in this way is because we do feel disqualified to come to this situation and say

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I I can administer this discipline to my child because I myself have done what

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I can to be right with God and be self -disciplined as well I know those apprehensions hit me all the time

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I know when I'm disqualified from doing what I'm about to do I need to get right with the Lord and I need to go and deal with that and then

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I can deal with my son and I'm to the asker of this question I empathize with or I sympathize with the the issue of disagreeing with your wife on this

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I luckily don't have that problem but I can't imagine you know what it would be like to have a disagreement on this this sort of especially

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I think this is an extremely important topic before you come to parenthood with your spouse extremely extremely important that we agree on how we're going to discipline as a

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Christian family and I'm sure you guys would reiterate that as well yeah I mean every we had said before every child is different and if your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail

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I mean that that'll you know saying is is true and you know

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I know that every child is different but you know spanking is you know usually for younger yeah younger kids yeah the discipline that your older child requires looks different but the principle is still the same it's still day in day out and it is done out of love concern and and never in never in anger and it's hard when you watch your child do the exact same thing that you did at that age and part of you is like fighting back a smile

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Oh every time but I think that if you remember that you did that then the discipline that you're providing is not a punishment or not a revenge for this child defied my authority in the home okay you need to back off that probably it's it this is not payment for them defying you this is a loving discipline and concern because you want them to have a better life you want to save their life you want them to this is for their for their future good so that they can become a responsible adult and like remembering you having done the same thing

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I think it's sometimes it's helpful because I remember having done the same things and realizing which discipline applied to those situations helped me the most now that may not be the same for my son but at least it reminds me of how

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I've had it dealt with in the past like a little bit of familial wisdom being passed down on how to handle certain things has been very beneficial for me at least

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I don't know how you guys have come up with some of those come across some of those things that you see yourself in them anyway yeah

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I think there's a lot of dynamics it goes on honestly you know this would be something to you would want to kind of talk about and know before you get married yes absolutely but even then

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I mean you you're gonna find out that husband and wife just have different parenting styles and sometimes that speak you know there is a there's a reinforcement right

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God gives two parents for the family for the children and that's a good thing but there is little else more stressful on a marriage than when husband and wife are in a middle of the need to discipline a child and they are disagreeing about how to do that in the moment there is there is little else more stressful than that and and those little little centers will see that and take advantage and I did that and they will do that early because they'll know what the different the difference is going on but it comes down to you know husband and wife is the primary relationship there needs to be unity there first there needs to be a clear -headedness you know you all need to be talking about how to discipline your children well outside of those disciplinary moments when things are calm when you can hear one another clearly talk about it you know read through a good

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Bible study on it may do a Bible study on this like we've been doing in this podcast but you all need to be in agreement you need to know what's the military term rules of engagement you need to know what the rules of engagement are before you get into that crisis situation so that there is there's no mistake about it you know you all know exactly how to respond the child will feel far more loved when that's the case guaranteed yeah well

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I think that about wraps up our discussion on discipline in the home and how to either handle it in agreement or disagreement and how what where do we go where do we go in the scriptures to find it

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I think we laid out a pretty good amount of scripture and there's actually I would say there's far more that you could delve into maybe even look at how the

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Lord deals with his children across the wider breadth of Scripture and he might put someone's hip out and he might give him a thorn in their side but it's all to discipline them and to for in it for their good so we'll move on to what we recommend this week

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Michael what do you recommend the Christian family by Herman Bavinck written in 1912 and the things that he writes about in Dutch society in 1912 are the things that have been happening in our nation in the last 20 years and he talks about the ardent desire of some to completely dismantle the family and replace it with the state and he describes the chaos of that and he advocates a biblical approach to family rejoicing in the good of a husband and father the good of a wife and mother the good of children sons and daughters and how

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God has designed that family and so I highly recommend the Christian family by Herman Bavinck all right

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David now I would be shocked if we hadn't already recommended this on a previous podcast but I'm gonna go ahead and mention it anyway because I just finished the audio version of this book which

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I don't recommend this is by what standard God's world

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God's rules Jared Longshore is the primary author and editor now

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Jared Longshore has famously gone from Southern Baptist to Presbyterian but we still love him this book it kind of a fleshing out of a documentary that was done

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I think just earlier this book the one that I I read was 2019 I listened to the audio version of it and I think the person that they chose to read it was not overly familiar with the source material and just because he mispronounced little things like he couldn't properly pronounce

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Laodicea little things things that it is like I don't think he's really familiar with the source material they just pick somebody who had a good voice and the inflection that he would put in there when he's talking about some of the more polemic pieces you can almost hear the disdain in his voice for the material so I like the book though and I would say that the chapter that Vody Bokum writes on cultural

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Marxism is worth the price of the book he's amazing so we may have mentioned that that book before if you see the documentary get the book if you like audio books don't be surprised if it annoys you a little bit it did me but by what standard

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God's world God's rules by Founders Press excellent excellent work amen this week

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I'm recommending why Johnny can't sing the Psalms it is and the subtitle is how pop culture rewrote the hymnal it is a discussion about the current situation of church hymns and hymnody within the churches especially the

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American Church abroad and abroad but I would say I'd recommend it on just for the analysis of where we are right now musically

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I felt some of this these things I didn't have terms for them but when now he is armed me with terms

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I'd like to sit down and discuss aesthetics with him but as far as the the history of hymnody in the

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US and American Christianity I 100 % agree and get back and I honestly

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I'd like to just sit down and agree with him about his analysis of country music and the way in which that's gone is there's there's a few things that get me fighting mad and that's one of them but he's a he's very spot -on in all those cases and it it would be a great read for anyone who has found hymns difficult especially some of the more ancient hymns to either enter into or sing full -throated and why it seems like it's that way in church and why it shouldn't be and he kind of plainly lays that out of the influences of get a guitar which he has a particular disdain for in worship music he mentions it at least once every chapter but I do appreciate his separation of categories from high classical folk music and then popular culture music and the legs that each of those have and how how across time one might carry value and weight as whereas pop culture does not it's for the moment and it is fleeting so it is why

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Johnny can't sing the song or sing the hymns how pop culture rewrote the hymnal by T David Gordon all right so we can move on to what are we thankful for this week

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Michael I am thankful for small providences just the little things that we can trust our

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Heavenly Father for just in every single day it's it's an old trope in Baptist life when times get hard we look at each other and say well

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I guess we could always pray and the other person says has it come to that but in fact what a joy it is to pray about all the little needs that we have and to be given those gifts those those provisions those mercies throughout the day every day amen

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David I am thankful for my wife's gift of hospitality she learned that from her parents it's one of those things that that you know it is a gift truly and I don't always like having people in and out of my home all the time but she grew up with it and we have a family that is traveling cross -country basically from Virginia to Nevada that we love and they were going to be here in a couple of days and we're just looking forward to them coming in and we're gonna feed them and see their kids and and and these are some brothers that have treated me like like their oldest brother their mom and dad are adopted grandparents to my daughter and Darlene has lovingly referred to me as her first son because I'm a little bit older than their oldest and it's just a loving family and we're just blessed to know them and I'm thankful that Amy wants to be hospitable and welcome them in and just we're looking forward to it so I'm thankful thankful for her gift amen to continue the brag on Amy she even she has water and snacks out for the long guy you realize how few people do that type of stuff you get done hot day and you look over there and there's cool water and a bar and all kinds of stuff and you're just like well it's magic man no no

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I mean that is greatly appreciated and she is you can tell she's just highly focused on the needs of others that are within her immediate orbit and it's a it's a blessing thank you brothers here church

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I'm gonna pass that on to her all right yeah mom I hope she I hope she's listening right she better be with no but what

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I'm thankful for this week is and I wouldn't have said this probably a few years ago because the word is so overused and it's usually used in a in a whiny way like Nazi no

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I would say actually within the church the word encouragement is usually overused in the sense of somebody saying well

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I just need to be encouraged as if what they needed all along was encouragement and maybe not discipline but when men are receiving

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I would say especially men in the church are in either difficult situations or times or in discipline receiving some encouragement when you don't ask for it and when you would probably never ask for it is one of the most uplifting things a man could receive from anyone in their orbit

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I am so thankful for my wife's encouragement at every turn for my church's encouragement when times get difficult and then always lovingly pushing you toward exactly where you're supposed to go

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I'm in that encouragement to always look to your Savior for all your needs and going to him in hopeful and faithful prayer all the time the encouragement that you can give a man that doesn't receive it often you do not realize the weight that that brings in his life and how that may be something that can just kick -start his day his week his month or his year and change so many things so I'm so very thankful for the encouragement