Parenting With Meekness and Temperance

Teachable Woman Podcast

Reverends Michele Owes and Diana P. Cherry

Parenting with Meekness and Temperance

Rev. Michele Owes: [00:00:00] Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. We're excited to be with you today. I am Reverend Michele Owes. I am with the one and only Mrs. Diana P. Cherry, and together we are teachers of good things. Mrs. Cherry greet our podcast family.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Hello, Podcast family. It's been a while since we've talked to you and shared with you. Know that we pray for you, and we love you, and we pray that you've been praying for us. Bless you and welcome back.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen. Well, we are indeed excited to be with you. We are going to bring our parenting series to a close. Mrs. Cherry has been giving us parenting tips, and I have been infusing the fruit of the Spirit. Along with those, we've learned that our children are the heritage of the Lord. I know we like to call them ours [00:01:00] unless they're misbehaving.

Rev. Michele Owes: But they are the heritage of the Lord, and God wants us to raise his children, if you will, in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. We went to Deuteronomy the sixth chapter, and we learned that God wants us to teach. Them of his statutes and his judgments. When we rise up, when we lie down, when we walk, by the way, when we sit at the table, there was no time that he did not want to be involved in the lives of his children.

Rev. Michele Owes: if you and I have maybe not taken the time to share who the Lord is to our children, whether they're adults or whether they're still children, or whether we even have grandchildren in our care. The Lord wants to be involved in the lives of his heritage, and he wants us to teach them. We don't wanna leave that job to the school.

Rev. Michele Owes: We don't even want to leave that job to the church. He expects the [00:02:00] parents and those who are. Been given the responsibility to care for his children and to teach them of the Lord. The church is to help us absolutely, but not to do the job for us we can absolve ourselves of that responsibility.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mrs. Cherry has been giving us these wonderful parenting tips and she told us that children that are taught of the Lord, that their lives are. Filled with peace. And we absolutely positively want our children to have lives that are full of peace. And we know that peace is not necessarily the absence of strife, but it is an inner work.

Rev. Michele Owes: It is the peace that Jesus promised us, that even in the midst of the storm, that we know that it's well because we know that our God is with us. we have been talking about the fruit of the spirit, and we learned that. This is the fruit of God's spirit. It's not our fruit, but it is his fruit. Mrs.

Rev. Michele Owes: Cherry brought that to our attention, but the [00:03:00] first fruit is love. out of Galatians, the six chapter verse, I'm sorry, the fifth chapter verses 22 to 20. Three, it says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such. There is no law.

Rev. Michele Owes: And we have been. Sharing with you that as we parent our children or reparent the older ones, we wanna do so with the fruit of God's spirit and we know that God is love and everything begins with love. Love never fails. The love that God offers us, it's unconditional and it never fails. the love that he wants us to share, should not fail as well.

Rev. Michele Owes: Alright, Mrs. Cherry infuse some parenting tips for us upon [00:04:00] tonight.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I think that if we are going to be effective parents of this heritage of God, who are our children, that we, really need to. all of the fruit of the spirit functional in our lives. I believe that we have shared even though we have two more fruit that we're gonna be talking about tonight. But I think that we've shared enough that if we go back and listen to the teachings that we have done. Just look for a nugget, something that we said that will help you and apply it to our lives. But remember that our children be what we are. They're gonna say what we say, they're gonna do what we do. And we live in a time when our children are under way more stress they ought to be under. have too many children who are [00:05:00] facing. The temptations of taking their own lives. And those of us who are Christians, we have to realize, as Reverend O said, these children are not our own. God's heritage and they're our future generations.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: They, they are the future us.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: what kind of a future are we building as we're parenting these children, as we are raising these children in the love and the admonition of the Lord, and as we're teaching them of the Lord, our children should be peaceful the word of God says that all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. I'm. A firm believer that if we really are teaching our children the things of God, the ways of God, the the reasons why we do what we do in in relationship to worshiping God serving God, we're [00:06:00] really loving our children and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit as we are parenting these children, that we will indeed raise up a generation of children who are taught of the Lord. Great indeed will be the piece of our children and parents. Once again, I have to, encourage us to allow our children to be overexposed to all of the technological things that are available to them. They're available, but a 9, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old, they just don't need a cell phone. And there's no way that we're gonna monitor them if we allow them to have that phone. been anti cell phones for years. I, I maintain my position. I've not been proven wrong. so I wanna encourage you, get them something more educational, get them puzzles, teach them how to work [00:07:00] puzzles, them how to do things other than. Being on a cell phone, it's just not healthy for them, and I just have concerns about what we are allowing our children to be exposed to. Remember we taught many, many months ago that exposure creates options and outta options we're given choices. I pray that we as parents will monitor what our children are exposed to and if we allow them to have a cell phone, have no idea what they're exposed to.

Rev. Michele Owes: That's very true.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: that's my parenting tip, is to raise them up in the nurturing admonition of the Lord, and great will be the peace of thy children. Number two. Make sure that these fruit of the spirit are operational in us, and if they're operational in us, they'll be manifested in our children. And number [00:08:00] three, take those electronic instruments. They call them devices. what a demonic word they call it. Get those devices out of the hands of our divine children.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen. Mrs. Cherry, I think one of the things that I have noticed, as it relates to children with devices, they're really. Missing the opportunity to get the, to know the people that are in their presence. They're missing the opportunity to learn, how to nurture relationships with people because the relationship that they foster is the one with the device rather than the people and they miss many natural, social emotional cues.

Rev. Michele Owes: And oftentimes become antisocial, not in a political way, but losing the [00:09:00] social graces, if you will, because the device has become what we're most familiar with other than learning to speak to people, greet people, enjoy the presence of people, learn something about them, and letting them learn something about you.

Rev. Michele Owes: And I think we. And that's the greater miss, and that's the one that the enemy wants them to miss, right? there have been many older people, or I just want to say more mature people who spoke into my life. When I was a child, but it was because we had dialogue. It was because when I came in the room, they noticed, and when they came in the room, I noticed and I greeted them and they greeted me and I talked to them and they talked to me and I learned things about them and they learned things about me.

Rev. Michele Owes: And before I knew it, I was somebody's favorite. And, for all of my good grades, I was getting gifts and, and, Getting to go to things the theater and all [00:10:00] kinds of things. People just began to invest in my life just because we had some basic conversations, not because I asked for anything, would never do that if I wanted to stay alive, but just because people looked well into the ways of my life to see how they could assist me.

Rev. Michele Owes: But it started with a conversation. started with me acknowledging them as human beings and they are doing the same. Our children are missing those things because the relationships that they're fostering are with devices rather than with people. The two, fruits that we're going to cover tonight meekness and temperance, and we've learned that meekness is power.

Rev. Michele Owes: But it's under control.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: No.

Rev. Michele Owes: the way that we use meekness in the English society is not the way that the Bible refers to the meaning of meekness. We tend to think of them as [00:11:00] timid, weak people who don't know how to stand up for themselves and make decisionsIf it's a man, they're not manly enough because they're too meek, but meekness is power under control.

Rev. Michele Owes: Jesus had the power to come off the cross, but he kept it under control so that he could be the savior of the world, that he could take on the sins of you and me. He had the power; he could do it. But he kept it under control. And as we look at parenting, we have the power to do some things.

Rev. Michele Owes: We have the power to put a cell phone in the hands of our children, but we can keep that thing under control until we find that,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: that they're mature enough to handle such a device. And cell phones are expensive. I don't care what kind of plan they're trying to put you on. Eventually, those numbers. They blossom into huge numbers.

Rev. Michele Owes: [00:12:00] adding children, putting such an expensive device in the hands of a child, and it is true, you cannot know where they can go. On that device, 'cause you're not with them every moment, and they can find places and end up in spaces that you would never have imagined a child could be. They can be talking with people or viewing things that you would never imagine.

Rev. Michele Owes: We're not with them every moment that they're using the device, but if we're going to parent, we should parent with meekness. We have the power to do some things, but we want to use the power that God has invested in us with his Holy Spirit, for the good, for the goodness of the child's life, and for the good of the kingdom.

Rev. Michele Owes: We oftentimes use the powers that we have for other things, more worldly things.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes. We have the power to, we have the power to destroy, but it's better [00:13:00] if we would build up. Rather than to destroy meekness is power under control. I could do you damage, but I choose to pray for you instead. meekness is I can what, what is this expression? A peace of my mind.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But I don't have enough mind to be sharing my mind with anybody, none of us do. And we have to learn to control we might want to do. Do what we ought to do and do what the Lord would have us to do. Jesus Christ could have destroyed, God could have destroyed the earth after man's sin, but instead he worked with what he had created and he never lost faith in us. And. God's will is going to be done in the earth. we just think about this. We have the ability to help facilitate God's will [00:14:00] in the earth. We have the ability to manifest all of the fruit of the spirit that God. That flow from God, we have the ability to manifest it. I think no better way to manifest the fruit of the spirit than the fruit of meekness. I choose to be nice. I choose to be kind. I choose to tear you down when it's better to build you up. I, I, I think of meekness as a very powerful fruit of the spirit. It's not weakness, it's meekness, and it's because of meekness and temperance. work together really, being temperate, I think of a piece of metal. Sometimes you'll look, my husband always looked at what trucks were carrying, and he would say, D, now you know the load that that truck is carrying, because the ca, the [00:15:00] flatbed would be flat. There was no flex in it. He said, now that's a heavy load. But then you see another truck just that, and you would see it would have a bow in it, and it would just bounce and flow.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And he would tell me, he said, now see, that's a lighter load, but look at the temperance of that flatbed trailer. Look how it's giving. And that's kind of the way meekness and temperance work. just flow. I think of them as just flowing with whatever challenges hard times come, but we just temper ourselves.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We just flow. We just go with the flow. We don't have to, as my mother used to always say, fly off the handle. But we can be tempered. We can season our speech with Grace. We can not do things that are unkind and unnecessary, but we can be meekness in dealing with our children, I

Rev. Michele Owes: I.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: believe that. If [00:16:00] we become parents who are perfected in the fruit of the spirit, will likewise raise up a generation of children who will learn how to deal with life situations. Our children at age 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ought not to be considering suicide. what have we done? To our children they have been exposed to things that would cause them to think that they're not worth living, that they're not, and, and I'm speaking because I had something to touch me dearly personally recently, it just, it concerns me in our Christian homes we have children who are so unsettled and exposed to so much. That they would choose to be on the cell phone scheming and planning their demise, whereas haven't taught them that Jesus Christ can [00:17:00] take care of it for you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: they don't know the reality of Jesus. And I really wanna encourage our parents. God is real. is. He just is. He's everything we need him to be when we need him to be it. And we have to somehow get it into the hearts of our children that this is not some fictitious person. some spirit that we're involved with here. This is God. A true and living God who loves us, us so much that after we had sinned against him, he manifested himself in sinful flesh to come into the earth and give us yet another opportunity to get right with him. That's a loving God. That's a God who manifests his own fruit of the spirit. And I know that God has empowered us [00:18:00] we can do better. We can love our children more. We can talk to them more. Reverend Os talked to us a while ago about. Getting each child and looking them in the eye and asking them, how are you doing today?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: How are you feeling today? What happened today? did anything upset you at school today? How did you handle it? we can do this, we can save our children and we do it through meekness, we do it through temperance. nothing that's so important that should ever cause us. As Christ to act out of character.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Now I know that sounds like, oh, come on, Ms. She, you gotta be kidding. You don't know who I work with. You dunno who I'm married to. No, I don't.

Rev. Michele Owes: You don't know

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God

Rev. Michele Owes: my children.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: and God does. God knows. And we've just got toget back to actualizing the reality of God. God is real. And [00:19:00] he's not real. The old Sam goes, because I can feel him deep within whether I feel him or not.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God is

Rev. Michele Owes: right.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: and God is real. And so parents, as we're bringing to a close the teaching on the fruit of the Spirit, realize that you can do this. You can manifest every one of these fruit of the spirit. We can transfer them to our children. We can feed them to our children in manageable bite-sized pieces, we can make our children make a difference in the world.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We can do this. children are God's heritage. They are blessing from God, and I would just love to see us spend more quality time, less money.

Rev. Michele Owes: More quality time.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Of self With our children, they really only want us.

Rev. Michele Owes: That is [00:20:00] true.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: They

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: only want us.

Rev. Michele Owes: as I hear what you're saying, Mrs. Terry, it reminds me that. We should never call our children stupid or lazy or curse at them or belittle them, or even embarrass themwith just negativity. They are God's heritage and God didn't create anyone stupid. He didn't create anybody lazy and nobody dumb, and nobody ugly and nobody foolish.

Rev. Michele Owes: our choices are foolish, but A lot of those choices come because we don't know the Lord. We don't know what he expects from us. We don't know, how to build children, don't know how to build their own character. That is something that is taught. And if we found that he, we ever called our children those names and they're struggling today to figure out if they could learn something or go to school, or am I even smart enough to go to college or could I even get good grades?

Rev. Michele Owes: And [00:21:00] that that's part of our doing. we need to work as much as we can to undo that. if there's such a thing and we owe them an apology, we owe God an apology for speaking against his heritage in a way that is not like him. we, there's so much we can do. I, I'll never forget years ago, I, there was an accident and I had just gotten my little certification in first aid and, I got outta my car and I ran toward the accident and I was helping a young man and his mom, I was a, a.

Rev. Michele Owes: Applying, pressure on the wound, and he was bleeding and his mom was screaming. just, she was blowing all of us out. and I, I touched her hand with my other hand and I said, mom, I said, he's scared enough. I said, just. Let the ambulance come and let's see what we can do in the meantime. let's, let's clean up this wound.[00:22:00]

Rev. Michele Owes: I said, but he's already afraid. And I got, when I got to work, I told my boss that I had, I'd helped in an accident and he happened to know the people and he went to the hospital andthe young person said, there was a lady there who was so calm and she came and she just called my mom.

Rev. Michele Owes: He couldn't see because, part of his wound was in the head. I had pressure over his eye and part of his head he said immediately when he said that, I, he said, I knew it was you. I knew it was you. But the point is that no matter what is going on, ifif we are allowing the spirit of God toto temper us, if we understand thatthat there's a lot of control that we have, but we canwe can keep it under control to do the will of God, II think it would be far more beautiful for us and for our children.

Rev. Michele Owes: I wanna share this story I think this will help put it all into perspective. My granddaughter has a head full of [00:23:00] beautiful, long, thick hair. And there are two different ways that we approach it. Now, my granddaughter prefers for my daughter to do her hair than for me to do her hair, because when I approach washing, drying the hair, I'm, I'm doing four, I'm going quadrants, I'm cutting up.

Rev. Michele Owes: We're gonna part, we're going to take care of four quadrants at a time. Right. And I'm just, my, my thought is getting the job done right. I wanna, get the job done. But when my daughter approaches it, it's, she's going an inch or two at a time. She is, detangling with her hands first.

Rev. Michele Owes: I'm not, I'm going in with the brush. We're starting at the roots, we're coming through. Right. She has taught me, Mom, you don't, you don't detangle hair that way. You have to start from the bottom and work your way backwards. Okay. I've tried to learn how to do that. Need. Both of my granddaughters prefer my daughter.

Rev. Michele Owes: And matter of fact, one said [00:24:00] she's better grandma. She does better, and she does. But it's because she comes from a perspective of gentleness with them. I come from a perspective of, let's just get this job done right? This is a job, hair is a job. We approach it that. We, tackle it. We go, but she's.

Rev. Michele Owes: Concerned with how they feel. She's gentle in her approach. She's concerned with, what they want as well. What kind of style do they want? It's like Uhuh grandma. We're doing these two big, getting it over with, we're getting it washed, we're getting it blood dry. We're getting, we're doing that.

Rev. Michele Owes: She's, there's, she, she approaches it very gently and God is very gentle with us And then she also approaches it from a good heart. So she's got the good heart that she brings into it. She's got the knowledge and the understanding, and she has this gentleness that she brings into this whole ordeal, and [00:25:00] she's willing to spend all the time that is necessary to do their hair, but.

Rev. Michele Owes: I got a time schedule. I'm not giving it more than two hours. We're gonna have to get this baby done, right? and there's two granddaughters. So there is no, there is no question as to why they prefer her over me. Do you understand what I'm saying? Our children will to.

Rev. Michele Owes: When we come at it with a good heart, when we approach it gently, not from the perspective of I gotta cook, I gotta clean, I gotta wash, I gotta get you to school, I gotta help you with your homework. These are the two dos of life. But when our heart is there because we are raising God's heritage, because they mean something, not only to me, but to the body of Christ, to the world that God has created that I know not of.

Rev. Michele Owes: I don't even know who I'm [00:26:00] raising. God does.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: But I dare not harm them in a way that they're so fearful or in a way that they, they doubt themselves so much that they cannot step up or will not step up to what God would have them to do or be. And I said all that to say when we think about the fruit of God's spirit as we parent, we need to understand that these, they're not our children and God approaches us gently.

Rev. Michele Owes: No matter what we've done, we can fall before the Lord on our knees and we can ask for forgiveness and we can ask to be cleansed, and we can ask to the Lord to create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit with us, and then we can study his word and he's gentle with us.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Michele Owes: He has a good heart. He wants a beneficial effect in our [00:27:00] lives, and we wanna have a beneficial effect in the lives of others. So as we parents. Please no name calling, please. No cursing, please. No loud, angry, screaming. Please, no abandoning of the children and just leaving them. Please remember that they are God's heritage.

Rev. Michele Owes: God loves them and he's entrusted them to you. Please don't put them on the back burner for the next new thing that we found. Please don't always choose over time at work and more money and have less time with the children. Please don't forget about. You have, look them in the eye. See what the affairs of are of their lives on a daily basis.

Rev. Michele Owes: I remember one time someone saying to me that their child had a tough day at the daycare. And I laughed so hard because I thought it was [00:28:00] funny. how can a child at the daycare, they get to take naps, they get snacks, they, they read stories, they sing songs who has a tough day at the daycare, but they can't.

Rev. Michele Owes: They can't, there's other cruel children at the daycare who can make the day tough as well.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: So let's just please make sure that we're caring for God's heritage the way he would have us to care for them. And if we do that, moms grandmoms, dads granddads, aunts, uncles, sisters, and brothers. If we'll do that for God's heritage, we can change the world.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes. What a wrap. this has been the parenting series and Reverend O's comments. just been cherry the top of the sundae and she employed us. Please, please love God's children. Please take care of [00:29:00] God's heritage. Please don't raise your voice to them. be kind to them. Please remember who they are. What a perfect wrap-up to the parenting. Series that we've been sharing, let us please strive to manifest the fruit of the spirit as we walk with our children and talk with them get rid of all the negative foolishness and just love them for who they are. They're all beautiful in God's eyes. Let them be beautiful in your eyes and let us do the best that we can do and be the best that we can be. God will be pleased and our children will be very thankful. God bless you. We love you. Goodnight.