Being a Monday usually means working on mindsets as well as working on math problems.
As I sat at my desk reading my Bible and enjoying the moments of aloneness with Daddy God, someone knocked on my door. (I appreciate the respect of knocking, so if it's at all possible, I always bid the seeker to come in.) It was a frustrated, upset boy wanting answers. I took a deep breath because I knew this exchange was not a surface issue I would be dealing with.
He began his tirade blaming his math book for not telling him what to do and then blaming me for 'not lifting a finger' to help him figure out any of THIS math book!
How I appreciate the power of the Spirit of God speaking through me. I'm always amazed at His wisdom because it always speaks directly to this child's likes-Legos-and then relates it to spiritual truths.
I discussed with him, in length, about how the Saxon math book does not have it 'out' for HIM, but that it's just a math book, just like every other book anyone wraps himself around. It's made to serve a purpose-it's that simple. When I switched the subject to Legos, then he really began to understand.
He received a Lego truck for his birthday and I remembered his comment that it was very difficult to understand the directions (but he didn't ask for any help from anyone to figure them out). So I asked him if he thought the directions were made that way to frustrate
him or if they were just made to explain how to put the truck together. (The lights were beginning to go on in his brain.) I asked him if he gave up making the truck because of how hard the directions were or if he struggled through until he understood them. He responded that he kept trying. And then we discussed that the struggle wasn't as much with the directions as it was with his thoughts about the directions, and his will or determination to complete the Lego truck so he could play with it.
(This was a great springboard to talk about his world view and
him not being the center of the world, but rather how he revolves around this world and has to learn how to relate to the things in his world with God's view on a matter!) We shared about how his thoughts on a matter determine what he does with the problem at hand.
This was, indeed, a fantastic class in
ethics and
philosophy.
I discussed that when he was little, I spoon-fed him until he took the spoon out of my hand and did it for himself, but how I also realized that I like to feed him and have been, up to now, 'feeding him' regarding Math, his chores, leaving on time and other areas when I should have let him take the 'spoon' and care for those things himself. I then asked him to forgive me for enabling him to stay little when he's growing up and is capable of doing math and other things without my help. That's not to say he likes this or wants to be responsible, but it's like medicine: one takes it whether or not they like it in order to get better!
Later on, when I joined them both in the family room, twin # 2 was doing his math and struggling as well. He was actually in tears and rather than just tell him to keep trying, which would have only caused him more discouragement, I stepped over to his desk, kneeled down and we talked about how he'd been working on the practice for over an hour and he just had hit a wall and did not understand the work. I grabbed a chair because I knew he needed guidance and as he read the concepts out loud to me, he began to see how it was done.
Sometimes, just sitting next to them and allowing them to wrestle verbally with the work has helped tremendously! That boy only got one wrong, and when he finished the practice problems, it only took him thirty minutes to do the rest of the problems.
These things matter because God is in the details:
Hebrews 8:5 (NLT)
They serve in a place of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. For when Moses was getting ready to build the Tabernacle, God gave him this warning: "Be sure that you make everything according to the design I have shown you here on the mountain."
It was a great day.
