Watch the Drift

Last night @ church our guest speaker talked about drifting. We don't drift into an intimate relationship with our spouse, our children, our friends, God. Naturally, we drift apart. It takes work, real work and committment to that work, to "drift" in to intimacy. Today, this was the message from Blending a Family Ministry and I have seen these slow poisons erode past and present family. It brings my heart sadness. One of the great new songs @ church last night had a sentence "Break my heart for what breaks Yours". We become incredibly desensitized to things that break His heart and we accept it. I have found that one of the biggest changes of myself in the past 6 years. Sometimes I shake my head at myself for what I accept as normal. - Rebecca

Blending A Family Ministry eNewsletter - November 2009
Hi families and friends!

I was thinking today about my pack of beagles. One of my former hobbies was to hunt rabbits with a pack of beagles, and my hunting buddies and I had many fond memories on those hunts. In 1991 I sold all of them because it was getting too difficult to find a place to hunt without leasing property. That is when Paige and I got Chloe, our first Labrador retriever puppy.

When I was trying to develop a good pack of hunting dogs, I took my best male and female beagles and bred them. I got four of the most beautiful puppies from them. I gave one of the puppies to a close friend and kept the other three, and three of our children named them. One day I took them on a hunt with the mature dogs (that's how you train hunting dogs). Within 30 seconds of letting them out of the cage to start the hunt, two of the puppies start fighting over some trash on the ground. It turned out that they found a piece of meat from a dead animal. They did not have time to ingest it before I got it away from them --- so I thought.

Within thirty minutes one of the dogs began having convulsions and throwing up. About 20 minutes later it was dead.
We hunted for a little while and then left for home. On the way home another puppy started throwing up, then convulsing. Before I got home it had died.

What a loss - I was devastated. I was so proud of those puppies. I felt so defeated.
I found out later from the property owner that he had put out poisoned chicken necks in another field about a mile away to kill animals that destroy his crops. Apparently an animal had dragged that poisoned meat to our hunting field before ingesting it and dying. My dogs found it and did not know it was harmful.

I tell this story because people often do not realize when they are partaking of something that will harm them, their marriage, or their children. In our new book, God Breathes on Blended Families - Second Edition, we address how our adversary the devil uses the process of erosion to damage and destroy us. Erosion starts so subtly in our life, but can eventually bring destruction. Here is an excerpt from the Book pages 69-70:

Consider the following questions:
• When do occasional drinks progress into alcoholism?
• When does trying an illegal drug grow into an addiction?
• When does the first glimpse of pornography become a compulsive lifestyle?
• When does repeated anger escalate into uncontrolled verbal or physical abuse?
• When does a hobby become a compulsion?
• When does the enjoyment of good food become obesity?
• When does an office friendship turn into an affair?
• When do frequent arguments between a husband and wife escalate into disrespect and resentment?
• When does discipline by a stepparent become resentment in a child’s heart?
• When does hurt in a teen’s life escalate to isolation, depression, or suicide?

All of the above are examples of what can happen through the erosion process—erosion of our thought process, our emotions, and eventually our will. People lose control of their own will. Their emotions take control over their sound judgment, and their life is led by ungodly thoughts and uncontrolled emotions. Life gradually yet surely turns into what seems to be a death spiral, taking its victim further away from making right choices (righteousness)—and seeing no way out.

(End of excerpt)

Sometimes the impact of the poisons we play with, or we allow to entertain us) is sudden. Other times the impact is slow and painful.

"Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" 1 Corinthians 5:6

Leaven is the yeast that is added to bread dough to make it rise. Just a small pinch of yeast will leaven the whole loaf. Sin works in the same manner. Unrepentant sin and compromise will infect your whole life and everyone in it.

Consider your steps:
1. Be determined to walk holy with the Lord, and set standards for your family to do the same.
2. Do not become careless.
3. Be on your guard - watch for simple, subtle, little things that can infiltrate your mind and you home.
4. God is your front and rear guard, your protector. His Holy Spirit will warn you of things that are harmful.
5. Your responsibility is to be prayerfully alert.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." Psalm 1:1-3