Liz: 0:12

All right, welcome to our one blessed mess. This is Ben and Liz, and we're here telling our story of raising six kids that we had in eight years, managing our entrepreneurial home with two businesses plus homeschooling, and currently raising how many teenagers been, how many four teenagers? Four, about to be five about to be five plus seven chickens and two dogs, just to keep things interesting. But today's conversation is about what?

Ben: 0:40

today's topic is family devotions and just in also like the broader topic of a rule of life. So specifically family devotions, but also as it relates to this topic of a rule of life, so specifically family devotions, but also as it relates to this concept of a rule of life, and you know we're going to share some fun stories about just the craziness that happens when we do family devotions with a large family.

Liz: 1:02

I think I know which one you're thinking of. Right this second.

Ben: 1:05

Oh, an actual story.

Liz: 1:06

Yes, I do.

Ben: 1:07

Like a story from family devotions.

Liz: 1:09

Well, yeah, I mean, we've got some funny stories.

Ben: 1:12

There's a few yeah.

Liz: 1:14

I think I know which one you're thinking of.

Ben: 1:16

Which one?

Liz: 1:16

I think the one about sex, ed and devotions.

Ben: 1:20

That is a little crazy. You might not have heard it right. That was sex ed in our Family Devotions.

Liz: 1:28

Yeah, that was. How do we even begin to tell this story?

Ben: 1:32

Well, I think maybe you lay a little context. You weren't there so you kind of get to escape the blame for that one.

Liz: 1:39

Right, I was totally gone because I took our youngest to school somewhere. I don't know what happened, but I was one of the youngest.

Ben: 1:47

It was one of them.

Liz: 1:48

One of the kids, one of the six pack. I took them somewhere and when I came back, our oldest daughter came running out to the car all in a hissy. She got in the car, shut the door shut and she was like Mom, I have to tell you something. I'm like, what I mean? I haven't even, I haven't even turned off the car yet. She's like mom, dad, he just said something that he should have never said. Thinking what did your father say? I don't even know. I can't even get this out of my mouth. I can't even believe we're talking about this. I don't know if I can record this.

Ben: 2:21

Well, maybe it'd be helpful if I told the story. Maybe, so because this part I just I can't. I so let's set a little context, as as they said, or as they said, she wasn't there. Right, it was just me with the kids and we do family devotions in the morning pretty regularly.

Liz: 2:39

When you know we've had some seasons on and off. We're not perfect, we're not perfect in it and I mean, let's face it, we're a family, so yeah, perfect. Ever things change. But we've.

Ben: 2:49

We've always tried to kind of continue to come back to family devotions. So this particular day Liz was out uh had the rest of the kids and typically how it goes is like I'll read from a devotional or we'll listen to a devotional, or maybe we'll even like pull up some Bible project videos.

Liz: 3:06

Oh yeah, those are the best the Bible project videos. I get so so much out of those. Yeah, really I love them just for myself.

Ben: 3:11

But uh, really well done um. So anyways, we did one of those and the topic of uh, children came up like who asked the question? Well it was. I think it was our youngest okay, so he was there, yeah and he was. He was just kind of noodling on this concept of children and like how they were a blessing and he was like where?

Ben: 3:34

where do children come from? I think is what he asked, and immediately some of the older kids kind of shot a look at me like don't, don't do that, Don't answer that question.

Liz: 3:46

Because they know their dad, they know their dad, they know their dad is not going to leave that question hanging. So what did you say? Because he was younger. Well, I mean here's my philosophy.

Ben: 3:56

It's like if you're going to ask that question, I would rather be the one to answer it Instead of no, I get it.

Liz: 4:05

Some uncontrolled circumstance. I'm on the same page as you. Right, I get it, I get it. So I was getting jazzed. I was like, all right, here's my opportunity we get to At the family devotions with everybody there, of course, naturally.

Ben: 4:15

Yeah, except for you and one other person.

Liz: 4:16

But anyways, whoever it was, we don't even remember. Yeah, we don't remember, but anyways.

Ben: 4:20

so I'm like rearing to a younger child. So, like you know, I'm thinking okay, how do I relate this? I don't really know how old he was. He was probably like maybe four or five.

Liz: 4:38

I don't know, but what you said you need to get to the punchline you need to get to this part of the story so basically, it's awkward to say it, it is yeah. I'm dragging my feet.

Ben: 4:55

I don't know what's awkward, gosh, dang it. Now we're talking about it. You better say it. People want to know. Basically, I turned to him and I said, well, oh my gosh, there's I can't even get it out there's, there's the this hole and a pokey thing. Oh my gosh, and it. And it was doomed right from the beginning oh my gosh, my kids just started laughing the older ones just were like what the heck Blaze? Our oldest was not happy. Our oldest was like dad.

Liz: 5:14

Justice. She's Miss Justice. So as soon as I pulled up she was hot Mom. Then I said he said what she goes? He just said that I was like oh no, so of course I get out of the car going. I'm like babe, really, he's like. He asked, I'm like, but you had to say it, right then?

Ben: 5:35

So that was how not to do sex ed and family devotions because it fell really flat, but anyways it was hilarious. We laugh about it quite frequently actually as a family, because I'm basically not allowed to do sex ed anymore no, not in that context.

Liz: 5:51

No, no, no but we I mean honestly, we love family devotions we do we try to do it most mornings.

Ben: 5:57

Um, yeah, it's a really great thing. Uh, I know it takes time and obviously we have to get on the same page right and the same schedule right um, but that's kind of what I want to talk about in the general context of, like, what is a rule of life. And so maybe you've not heard of that concept before. We heard of it through this book called Practicing the Way Yep Great book by John Mark Comer.

Liz: 6:20

Great book.

Ben: 6:21

And yeah, super good book on discipleship, Not bark book.

Liz: 6:26

That is not going to be in the family devotions either. Hopefully, not Maybe the dog devotions who knows, but not the family devotions.

Ben: 6:33

Oh my gosh, anyways. So this book talks about the concept of a rule of life, and the first we hear about the rule of life is from monastic Christian communities around the fourth century, and essentially it's just a way to guide and shape your life.

Liz: 6:50

Right, wait, were the monks, the ones that kind of had like a skull?

Ben: 6:56

Oh yeah, I mean that was another thing about it from the book is like John Mark talks about some of the early monks who were practicing this like rule of life concept and some of them would keep a skull at their desk at the work desk but why though? Sounds a little morbid, right actually I'm thinking like did they celebrate halloween?

Liz: 7:18

no, I mean isn't that, like merlin that had right?

Ben: 7:23

no, you wait, you mean the wizard.

Liz: 7:26

I guess he wasn't a monk, never mind Delete that.

Ben: 7:29

Yeah well, I don't know, Maybe there is a Merlin that's a monk, but not that I remember, no, no, no, I'm thinking of the wrong thing. So they would keep these human skulls at their desk to remind them that life is short.

Liz: 7:42

Right and that they shouldn't squander their time.

Ben: 7:44

Instead, they should rule over their life.

Liz: 7:47

That's actually really good, you guys over their life. That's actually really good, you guys, that's so good.

Ben: 7:54

It sounds a little extreme, but I kind of like that concept of just having something so in your face every day, like, hey, we have a short time on this earth, we do.

Liz: 8:00

I think that's the part that's like Don't squander your time, yeah, I think that's the thing that's hitting my heart and that's why we do family devotions, because, as we're raising a family, we mean we have, you know, emerging adults and they're talking about moving out and, you know, going off to college and and all these different endeavors that they want to pursue. But you know, we know that we only have so much time, so in our home, we want to, we want to set, we want to set the tone and teach them how to do it.

Liz: 8:27

Let's be clear, right, yeah?

Ben: 8:28

Yeah, so that was one of the things that we knew when we were planning our rule of life as a family. We knew that devotions was going to be, like, probably the first thing that we did in the mornings. So the rule of life, again, it's the concept of kind of taking the reins of your life and not just being reactive.

Liz: 8:47

Right, that's good.

Ben: 8:48

And so I think that's the biggest thing. It's not necessarily just like a bunch of rules and like a lot of don'ts, it's more about do's. Right, so it's you know, it's like not what you don't want to have happen, it's what you do want to have happen. So that's the most important thing. It's like trying to take the reins of your life, not just give it to whatever's the next most urgent thing, right so?

Ben: 9:15

that concept's like called the tyranny of the urgent. We don't want to live that way. We don't want to live like just for the next emergency. Right, we want to start shaping our lives and pointing it in the right direction, based on what we think, what we value.

Liz: 9:30

Right, so Isn't that something that you do in programming too?

Ben: 9:33

Well, yeah, I mean. So there's this concept of like reactive programming and things like that, and so you know it's reacting to things is good from a programming standpoint, but we don't want to be reactive with our time.

Liz: 9:48

We want to be proactive. We want to be proactive, yeah, yeah, because, yeah, because you're sowing into your future.

Ben: 9:52

You are and like I've heard it kind of said, you know, like you don't want to transact in opportunities. Right, right, that's good you want to make sure that you are setting the course of your life, not giving up, just based on you know, on what the most crazy emergency is at any given time.

Ben: 10:11

Right Because if you're allowing things to take your time away, then you're transacting in opportunities that you could be having at that moment, right. So that's kind of the idea is like you don't want to just be unruled, you want to have a rule of life.

Liz: 10:27

Right yeah, so you were giving Ethan a rule of life that Well, I gave him a lot more than that.

Ben: 10:33

You gave him an epiphany.

Liz: 10:35

Oh boy, yeah, Poor guy.

Ben: 10:37

So, but anyways, if you're interested in learning a little bit more about that concept, we highly recommend John Mark's book.

Liz: 10:43

Practicing the.

Ben: 10:43

Way, and then you can also look up practicingthewayorg that's the website of his book and he's got a rule of life builder, which is pretty cool. So you can actually go on there and pull out some different things to build your rule of life and just based on your interests and things like that, you can kind of set a schedule. So it's pretty cool.

Liz: 11:05

I didn't even know you could do that. So can you do that individually and for like a family? I believe so, yeah.

Ben: 11:11

I think it's more specific to individuals, but that's the other thing too is like you want to find other like-minded people who will be able to join you in this rule of life idea.

Liz: 11:21

Okay.

Ben: 11:22

And then it's much easier to keep each other accountable when you do it in a community. So just like we're doing as a family, just like we have some things, like you know. We want to start out the morning with devotions. We want to set aside a day of the week where we're not doing screens.

Liz: 11:35

Yes, when do we do that? So that's Sundays, we do Sundays.

Ben: 11:38

Yeah, we make sure that we just have kind of a screen free day there, and then also we're limiting the amount of time that we're on screens throughout the week. We're making sure that our kids are into creative endeavors. That's another big thing that we are interested in personally as a family. Yes, we are. So, yeah, it's just. I mean, it's like a whole different way of thinking about the time that you have, instead of just kind of giving yourself over to, I don't know, maybe just binge watching certain things or just playing video games without any kind of end in sight. Instead we're kind of taking back the time and trying to make it work for us, not just being reactive.

Liz: 12:18

Well, and I think, as parents, we know that our time is limited. We only have so many years and you only have so many years within their different seasons of these kids as well. So they're all in different stages and so having the rule of life even for each child as you're looking at their uniqueness and gifting and talents, you know. I mean it's just good. I think overall, what you're saying is is brilliant. I love it.

Ben: 12:42

I love it. Yeah, so glad we're doing it, yeah, anyway. So if there's if you guys want to learn a little bit more about that, we'll put the links in the. If you guys want to learn a little bit more about that, we'll put the links in the show notes and so you'll be able to check those out. But we want to talk about another story that we had during devotions. But this is really cool. I don't think there's going to be like a hilarity story. Maybe there is.

Liz: 12:59

I don't know which one is it.

Ben: 13:01

Well, it's when we were going around and like recognizing each kid and how they are able to display the character of the Lord.

Liz: 13:09

Yes.

Ben: 13:10

And we did that, so we did this. I don't know, this was probably last year, and what we did we just felt kind of impressed to do this one morning is that we took turns with each kid and we went around as a family and called out the character attributes of God that that kid we felt like they exemplified.

Liz: 13:31

So that was really cool and it was actually really fun because we've got some very introverted children in our family and those ones actually had the coolest things to say about their siblings and when it was their time they ate it up. They did Ate it up.

Ben: 13:50

They did and it was really neat to see how, like when we were telling them, like what we saw in their character, that we felt like, reminded us of God's character, like so, for instance, you know our oldest, we we saw like how he was very responsible, yes, and how he felt the need to uh be compassionate with some of his younger siblings and we were just like, yeah, we've you know, and even like protecting them and how we felt like that that's how the lord, kind of you know, is with.

Ben: 14:22

He protects us and he's compassionate towards us, and so we were saying that towards him and we just saw like the biggest smile come over his face.

Liz: 14:30

Yeah, it was real sweet. Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. And there were some other things with different ones, and the kids saying it to each other was really cool. Now we we do something like that for their birthdays. When somebody's in our, it's their birthday in our home, everybody will go around the table and say what they love about the individual. But for us to take time, and this was like on a Saturday, this wasn't like during the weekday because it took a while.

Ben: 14:51

It took about an hour.

Liz: 14:52

Yeah, to get through it. Well, plus, we have a ginormous family.

Ben: 14:55

So of course it's going to take a time.

Liz: 14:56

But when we do birthdays it's just that birthday person. So that day everybody just felt better. They were smiling and typically you know our devotions I'm just thinking about the length of time to be practical are not that long, you know we'll do like maybe 10, 15 minutes.

Ben: 15:12

Well, we kind of keep it open-ended on some of our devotions, right Like sometimes we'll have something that is very specific and then that might start generating questions that the kids have about a specific topic.

Liz: 15:24

So especially as they're getting older. I mean, they're asking really good questions and they're part of the. There's a conversation and and I just want to say for those who have younger ones, you know there are lots of little children devotionals out there, but when they were little, I mean we would, we would pull out crayons and paper and they would color, because we have different ages, you know we'd have like teenagers, you know budding teenagers, and then like a four year old, you know they're not going to, they don't care about what we're talking about, and so we try to make it friendly for everybody. And and also I'm just thinking to like the, the Bible projects have been good because they're not that long and usually all the ages are enjoying them.

Liz: 16:02

So it looks messy you guys that long and usually all the ages are enjoying them, so it looks messy you guys too. Especially we have littles like don't think it's going to be like this big, wonderful, yay, it's like. Okay, they're fighting, they just started biting, which makes me think of another time that we had the hurricane coming when we had a devotion we had a.

Liz: 16:18

We live near the coast and so a hurricane was coming and uh, I'm just saying this because we got up early in the morning to check the weather and to see and to make a decision if we needed to evacuate or not.

Ben: 16:32

Right, right, you remember which hurricane that was? Uh-uh, I don't remember. There's been so many, I don't remember.

Liz: 16:36

Yeah, but it was a bad one. It was a really bad one.

Ben: 16:38

Well, it was looking like it was going to hit directly for us, for this area. And so we were kind of watching it throughout the night and the day before. We were making sure like, okay, we're going to check, we're going to be ready to go if we need to.

Liz: 16:51

Yeah, all of our preparations and everything that we need to do. And so both of us got up early that morning, like at 4am, checking the weather, to make a decision if we need to pack up and get out of Dodge.

Ben: 17:04

Well, and it had been the case where, like the last couple of hurricanes just were like going right for us and then all of a sudden they would just turn, turn, yeah, so we were like man is this gonna happen, like this again?

Liz: 17:13

and this one was really bad, you know, and it was like it was a high ranking one. Yeah, this is like three or four. Yeah, you don't play.

Ben: 17:20

Yeah, you don't play and we, you know, we that Like. Obviously we want to choose safety no matter what the situation is. But we had seen the last couple of hurricanes do that thing where they just hook over, so we were thinking well if we're going to get out of town, are we going to have to go to Jacksonville? If we do that, then maybe that's going to be in the path of the storm.

Liz: 17:39

Yeah, we were looking at everything, we at everything, we just didn't know like north was bad because it was showing, showing that cone of uncertainty, and if any of you live where hurricanes are. When I say that, it's probably a trigger word when you hear the cone of uncertainty. You're like, oh, it's like a terrible word. So anyway, all that to say, yeah, we put it before the family.

Ben: 17:59

So we, we were like we're not quite sure what to do whether we should stay whether we should go. You know know, the hurricane was supposed to hit that day, and so we were like hey guys, listen, we're just coming to you as parents.

Ben: 18:11

We just want to put it before you guys, Like what do you feel, what do you think? And we kind of went around the room and just asked like hey, what are you guys getting? Do you feel like the Lord's telling us that we should leave? Do you get an impression at all? Anything, you know what?

Liz: 18:29

what are you guys thinking in this moment?

Ben: 18:30

And one by one, they all said they felt like we should stay, yeah, and then that gave us confidence too, because we were kind of leaning in that direction. We had already individually yeah, we'd already individually gotten that. We were like well, and so it was kind of a faith walk, to be honest, like yeah it's kind of scary even talking about it right now yeah, yeah, you know, because you're like, uh, we wouldn't just recommend that to any given situation, but we knew our house would be fine, we knew we'd be okay.

Liz: 18:51

But the the biggest thing was afterwards. It was like how many weeks would we be without power? And we were totally prepped to be ready for that which you have to be when you live in the area of the cone of uncertainty. Like you, just you to we know we have generators, we're ready.

Ben: 19:04

Yeah.

Liz: 19:04

But who wants to be without power for a couple of weeks? I definitely don't. So it was like, if we can get out of Dodge, let's go, you know, yeah, but I do want to say something as serious, as that morning was Right. We had been, you know, we had been already meeting as a family for years, and so, you know, like having these conversations and praying and teaching them how to pray, and you know, and knowing the peace of the Lord, you know, that's something that we've built upon. But that particular morning our oldest got on the keys. His hair is all crazy. His bedhead, oh yeah, totally bedhead, right.

Ben: 19:41

I know, yeah, yeah, but he, yeah, he was just started playing worship music and it was amazing, you know we just had a little family devotion time, extended time and right before the hurricane.

Liz: 19:51

But what was hilarious is this is how normal our family is. Some of them fell asleep. They started snoring. Okay, so this isn't anything like. This is not like? Oh my gosh, this sounds like. Wow, what a holy moment in their home. No, it wasn't. We had some we had some that started fighting.

Ben: 20:11

Oh yeah, throwing pillows. Yeah, I mean, there was like literally happening.

Liz: 20:14

I'm like, really you guys Like we. So I'm just trying to put that before you because if you're thinking like it's going to look like some beautiful, amazing angels- it really doesn't. It's like the normal normal. And I even took a video and posted it on the social. So if you saw that, I'm sure you remember. And of course we had friends and family all over asking us what we're doing and we had made the decision to stay, which most all of our neighbors have made the same decision.

Ben: 20:45

So, yeah, a lot of people around us decided to stay as well, so yeah and so anyway, but our daughter, she, we read Psalm 91.

Liz: 20:56

You know we talked about that as a family. What does that practically mean? And then she decided that she was going to go to every single window pane in our entire house and she wrote Psalm 91. Now in our bathroom we have like that really thick, like from the 90s glass.

Ben: 21:12

Oh yeah, the glass blocks, the glass blocks.

Liz: 21:14

So there's like I don't know what 50 of those in there.

Ben: 21:17

She's in there. It glass blocks so there's like a window. I don't know what. 50 of those in there, she's in there.

Liz: 21:20

Yeah, she's writing everything. And then she did all the window panes of our sliding glass doors which there's like tons of those too, you know it's like crossed off or whatever, and so it's there. Many of them are still up because I just cannot take them down like I just think it's permanent marker yeah, no, no, it was uh expo oh yeah dry erase. I told her she could do a dry erase, but to see her little handwriting in Psalm 91. And the kids were so awesome. And then that hurricane turned.

Liz: 21:46

Yeah, and we hardly got anything, I think we got one big branch that came down.

Ben: 21:50

We had one little Well, yeah, yeah, that was it. She came down from the tree. Everything else is fine no trees down, no damage to the house, nothing.

Liz: 21:58

Yeah, that's quite the thing. That's quite the thing, yeah, but we've created that culture of family devos, and I love that rule of life.

Ben: 22:05

Yeah, we love that. One other thing real quick is I use this little devotional. It's reading the Psalms in 30 days and that's pretty cool too, and the way that you do that is like three times a day. So that's another thing that I use personally, for my rule of life is being able to just get into the scriptures three times a day and do a devotional. That's been really, really awesome. So we'll put a little link down in the description as well if you guys are interested in that. That's just one other thing that you can do for your rule of life, and you know, doing the three times a day is not uncommon. We think Jesus probably did something similar to that.

Ben: 22:43

Daniel obviously you know other characters from the Bible and people from the Bible practice something similar to that.

Liz: 22:50

So uh, tell them about the dwell, I always say it weird.

Ben: 22:54

The app, the do well, do well. Why do I always say dwell? I always say it weird, the app, the Dwell Dwell.

Liz: 22:57

Why do I always say Dwell? I always say it weird. It's like our favorite thing right now.

Ben: 23:01

We're loving it. Yeah, dwell app, dwell, dwell app D-W-E-L-L. I believe.

Liz: 23:07

So I'm saying it right, saying Dwell, I'm close.

Ben: 23:09

I think it's close enough.

Liz: 23:12

How do you say it?

Ben: 23:13

I'm just kind of lengthening it, but it's all right.

Liz: 23:15

Oh.

Ben: 23:16

Maybe it's the Southern in you, so the Dwell app is really cool. There's probably about half a dozen authors or speakers, I would say that just put together devotion.

Liz: 23:27

I love it.

Ben: 23:28

And they switch out. So every day they have something. It's got different kind of mood music. I know that sounds weird on the devotion, but it's really cool Actually. It kind of sets music.

Liz: 23:37

I know that sounds weird on a devotion, but it's really cool Actually. It kind of like sets the tone. It's kind of like ambient. Yeah, yeah, ambient, ambient, okay, stop, you know.

Ben: 23:44

I already have an issue. I'll just say it for you. Thank you.

Liz: 23:46

I have an issue with saying words sometimes, so anyways the dwell app.

Ben: 23:48

that's another really cool thing we like to use for devotions and they're about anywhere from like five to 10 minutes long. They are very introspective.

Liz: 23:59

So normally we get a lot of questions from the kids, which is great.

Ben: 24:03

I mean it opens up family dialogues. That's another little tool to put in your arsenal with family devotional things.

Liz: 24:09

Well, and if I may just interject for just a second, oh you may. Oh, thank you, I enjoy. So Ben was using this app. For how long were you using this for Ben? Probably would you say like maybe a month before the family started.

Ben: 24:23

Maybe a couple of weeks.

Liz: 24:25

So then we started using it in the family and it has just been so good I feel like I don't know how else to describe it, but it's like I just feel centered with the Lord, especially when it's the first thing in the morning, at like six something, and you know I have my hot coffee in hand and then listening to this, and it's just, it, just. I have encountered the Lord deeply through those, through that app, and I love all the other things that we've done too. But I just think, for this season of where I am, I'm, I'm loving it. So, anyway, there's a shameless plug Get where I am, I'm loving it. So, anyway, there's a shameless plug Get it, get it and you can do it anywhere. I wouldn't do it when you're driving, maybe, because sometimes they tell you to close your eyes.

Ben: 25:03

Oh, yeah, don't do that. Yeah, probably not. Don't do that Most ideal during driving. Yeah, wouldn't be good. Yeah, yeah, cool. Well, this has been really good. I feel like we kind of covered the rule of life and shared some funny stories along the way with family devotions.

Liz: 25:14

We might have scared some people to not do devotions too.

Ben: 25:17

Yeah, yeah, we might have.

Liz: 25:19

Yeah, they're like I'm not prepared to talk about some of these topics, people.

Ben: 25:23

And if you don't know what the hole in the pokey thing is. Oh no, Stop Ben you can message me later, ben, and I'll explain that. Oh my gosh, a little more colorful language.

Liz: 25:34

Please do not For toddlers. Do not message. Do not message. Okay, do you have a scripture to wrap this up? Okay, please, let's get moving. Let's get moving. Bring some sanctity to this thing. Come on All right.

Ben: 25:46

So just kind of going along with the rule of life concept. First Timothy, 4, 7 through 8 have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness, For whole bodily. Training is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. Love that so that I feel like that sums it up really well right.

Ben: 26:12

Like that's kind of the ethos of what we're trying to get with the rule of life. We are trying to train our bodies, to train our minds, to train ourselves so that we can attain to the life to come right Like we're like. That's what it's all about.

Ben: 26:30

Right, we're not just looking at the here and now. We're not just looking at what benefits us in our present bodily form. We also want to think about what, the life to come, what we need to do to reap the benefits of that life, and so that's where we want to focus our lives here on earth to have a great impact on the life to come.

Liz: 26:49

I love it. What's the ethos of life?

Ben: 26:52

Oh boy, you had to ask that question.

Liz: 26:54

I did. That's a big word.

Ben: 26:55

It is a big word, right.

Liz: 26:56

I know, like the essence, we'll just go with the essence. The essence of life. The essence of life. Yeah, I know what it is, I was just kidding with you. Okay, so One more, one more. Oh yeah, one more. We got Deuteronomy 4.9. Oh yes, good scripture.

Ben: 27:09

So here we go. So only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children.

Liz: 27:22

Ooh, I love that, so this is a great little corollary verse for doing family devotions.

Ben: 27:27

We want to make sure that our kids are getting an education not only from the life experience that we've had with the Lord, but also even our grandparents and just keeping that, keeping that healthy yeah. Just we want to pass it down. Um, so we want our kids to know, we want our kids to experience the Lord and we want them to also just feel comfortable, you know, having their own devotions.

Liz: 27:52

Yeah, I love that and we really are gearing that towards that. Like we've, the kids have journals. Uh, we encourage them. You know, on days that we're not meeting together as a family, even when we do meet as a family, still go have their own personal time and uh, you know, cause it's a relationship.

Ben: 28:08

Yeah, you know, there's nebs and flows and there's times where we're doing it really well, there's times where we're not, you know just like everything, just like everything in our messy life.

Liz: 28:17

You name it parenting you know all the things, yeah, but it's, it's coming back to that rule of life.

Ben: 28:23

Exactly.

Liz: 28:24

That's what it comes back to Cause it.

Ben: 28:25

it just brings you back to get the course, and when you, when you do it with others, then you have uh something that you can be accountable to one another.

Liz: 28:32

And I'm just thinking too, like if you get in a ship that doesn't have a course, what happens?

Ben: 28:37

Well, you get thrown to and fro by the wind and the waves.

Liz: 28:41

Right, and I mean as simple as when you jump in an airplane and if you don't have your course planned, you know one degree off. You're going in a completely different direction.

Ben: 28:51

Yeah, yeah, I mean over time. If your life is off just a little bit over time, it just gets more and more exaggerated and you've wasted more and more time. So that's a good point it is yeah.

Liz: 29:00

So I love this. I love that we talked about this today. Well, thank you for being a part of our one blessed today. We are so grateful for you being here with us and we love that we get to do this podcast, our one blessed mess. Don't forget to subscribe and share with a friend who needs the encouragement. Also, follow us on Instagram and now we have a Facebook page Our One Blessed Mess. And again it's numeric one, but honestly, until next time, we want you to embrace your beautiful mess, because if our mess can be blessed, Then so can yours.

Liz: 29:36

Then so can yours have a great day.