Have you ever tried to box yourself into a mold that you thought was what others thought you should be in?  I have.  But God did make us all differently, and there is a unique diversity in all of His beautiful creation.  –There are specific things he tells us to do.  For example. As women, we are told to love our husbands and our children and be workers at home... but there is a lot of freedom within those boundaries, isn’t there?  I love that job!  
  Are you an out-doorsy sort of person?  I am. Not particularly into sports and athletic endeavors, but I love to be outside as much as possible.  I love to garden and work in the yard . Being outside is preferable to me~though the ‘skeeters seem to have arrived this past week.  Our boys and I have been working on landscaping lately and really enjoying it.  Our girls have planted some of the garden, but there is still a lot more to do.  

  I enjoyed reading the latest edition to the Black’s homepage this morning:

http://www.daveblackonline.com/teaching_our_children_practical.htm

Teaching Our Children Practical Skills.  We do think that Nathan is a pretty amazing young man.
 But there is not a cookie cutter out there to make little Nathans.  

http://store.cumberlandbooks.com/nathanblack.html

However, the points made in his answer to an email inquiry are very good.  While we don’t need to make little whoevers, we do need to encourage our own children to live their purpose before Christ.  Not only as followers of Christ in all areas, but as doing so with the talents, skills, passions and make-up that God has given each of them individually.    Our guys have different bents, and so do our girls.  But in writing this, I’ll focus on our guys.       One of our sons, Josh is a language guy.  He loves to study languages and figure ‘em out and then discuss the language.  This includes computer language, he talks over my head daily and I have no idea sometimes what he is talking about.  I have to just say, “Well, I’m glad you understand that.”  Thankfully, he has friends who have that interest as well, and they can discuss Linux until the cows come home.  When I have a computer question, I ask Josh first because he usually can figure it out.  
 We feel very blessed that Josh has a desire to learn Greek so that he can look up words for us as we study the word of God.  What a blessing this has been already! We look forward to seeing how the Lord chooses to use this in his life.  

 
He’s a good strong worker around our property and when he understands something, he does a good job of getting the task accomplished.

  John, my husband is a bit like this, but not in terms of languages, his is more in terms of his line of work: he studies medical journals, and reads reports. He describes to me how different medicines break down in the body and what can interfere with the process, or cause problems. Hearing about the molecular level of any given drug may not sound too fascinating, but I have “learned” to find it interesting and to see God’s incredible details in His creation. John likes to figure out what went into a study and what the biases were, etc.  to determine it’s accuracy.  

He also studies the word of God regularly and leads us in that study nightly.  But even during the day he calls me to discuss an aspect of it, usually every day, as he is driving with his work.

 One of the things that strongly attracted me to my husband was his ability to think, and willingness to discuss things.  He was not as “shallow” as most young men I had come into contact with at that time. .  After 17 and ½ years of marriage, he still fascinates me.  He is sort of the “Forrest Gump” of facts.  He tells me something new all the time, and I don’t know how he knows that stuff.  He doesn’t sit around and boast about himself, he never has been like that.  I appreciate that example set before our children.  He will access a situation before jumping in and saying something and he doesn’t move quickly on things because he first wants to have an understanding of situations before taking an action.  He doesn’t blindly follow the crowd either.  This is a very good trait to have.    

  Jacob, our other son, is much more hands on.  He is VERY creative in story making.  He and his brother make a good team of making DVD’s with their friends.  They are currently working on some DVD’s and CD’s for our PWP business.  But Jacob has very little inclination to languages.  He can however, see what we are doing and say, “Don’t you think this might work better?”.  One of the funny ones was when Josh and I were attempting to put a ladder up on the landing part way up the stairs.  We tried several different ways of doing it.  Jacob then walked up and said, “What if you did this?”.  He folded the ladder and leaned it against the wall, making it stable and even.  –duh--
—Jacob can look at things and figure out how they go together and he loves to work outside and build things. He loves to make things with wood.  He is a patient, hard worker.  He is zealous in his desire to live for Christ in all areas.  

Both our boys, with their God-given bents are blessings to us. Though raised in the same home and with the same parents and very close in age— they are different from one another.   We are so thrilled to watch them grow into godly young men who desire to live for our Lord Jesus Christ. They are not perfect, nor will they ever be. But what a blessing it is to watch them grow, not only physically, but also mentally, spiritually and in their understanding of the way the Lord is guiding their lives. Different isn’t “bad”.  We should all be studying and applying the word of God to our lives out of our love for Jesus our Savior, but we are individuals designed by our Creator for His good works, and we need to encourage those in our children in line with the way they are wired.  
This week lets think of some ways we can encourage our boys in the way God has made them?  Yes, they need to be manly, mannered, patient, kind, loving, joyful, gentle, self-controlled... but specific to them, what do they have a bent toward?  How can we provide opportunities for them to use these bents?  Can you think of anything more frustrating then if you had a passion to do something (within the bounds of Christian behavior) and you were never allowed to work on that skill or goal?

We often remind our children, and ourselves, that we need to “encourage one another on to love and good deeds”... not discourage them on to anything, that doesn’t work!  Today I’m thinking of how that can apply to the way we make available to our young men, the ability to work in the areas God has made them inclined toward.