Pete and Repeat.......

July 2, 2012

Pete and Repeat are sitting in a boat, Pete falls out, who is left? – Repeat

Pete and Repeat are sitting in a boat, Pete falls out, who is left? – Repeat

Pete and Repeat…………….

You get the idea. My father used to tell this joke to us as children and my husband would torment his niece and nephew with it when they were little. My life feels like this joke some days. Just when I think they have it – here we go again.

It would seem that mopping a floor is the most difficult to master skill on the planet. Maybe in the whole universe. It is not like Mondays come out of nowhere and ambush us, but every Monday when it comes time to do our morning chores my children forget how to. And it is not like I rotate the assigned chore from week to week. Every Monday of every week my son is responsible for mopping the floor while I do the dishes that have accumulated over the weekend. And every Monday (well 99% of the Mondays) he only does half the floor, or leaves alternating swaths of wet and dry. And every Monday I have to show him how to do it and make him start over. What should take 10 minutes turns into to 30 minutes ordeal.

When he finally completes his task we sit and have a talk about diligently working at something until it is accomplished. We talk about doing everything to glorify God. We talk about the time wasted and the other things he could have been doing if he had only done it right the first time. I know he feels a sense of pride when he does a good job so I am baffled as to why he does not always do a good job. And I know he hates having me tell him over and over how to do it.

I think he’s testing me! Seeing if I have the same standard today that I had last week. I must be more consistent!

I know this passage talks about teaching the word of God to our children but I think it applies to all areas of our life. We must be ever vigilant and we must not rest.

 

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. – Deuteronomy 6:7.

DISCIPLINE, n. [L., to learn.]

1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.

2. Instruction and government, comprehending the communication of knowledge and the regulation of practice; as military discipline, which includes instruction in manual exercise, evolutions and subordination.

3. Rule of government; method of regulating principles and practice; as the discipline prescribed for the church.

4. Subjection to laws, rules, order, precepts or regulations; as, the troops are under excellent discipline; the passions should be kept under strict discipline.

5. Correction; chastisement; punishment intended to correct crimes or errors; as the discipline of the strap.

6. In ecclesiastical affairs, the execution of the laws by which the church is governed, and infliction of the penalties enjoined against offenders, who profess the religion of Jesus Christ.

7. Chastisement or bodily punishment inflicted on a delinquent in the Romish Church; or that chastisement or external mortification which a religious person inflicts on himself.

DISCIPLINE, v.t.

1. To instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing in correct principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession, or for future usefulness.

2. To instruct and govern; to teach rules and practice, and accustom to order and subordination; as, to discipline troops or an army.

3. To correct; to chastise; to punish.

4. To execute the laws of the church on offenders, with a view to bring them to repentance and reformation of life.

5. To advance and prepare by instruction.