You’ve heard of the 3 R’s- Reading- Writing- and Arithmetic- referring to to the basic and essential educational skills that must be taught in schools.

This younger generation might think of 3 R’s- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle- a good mantra within itself.

However, I’d like to share our Learning Rules-

The 4 L’s!

 Listen, Learn, Love, and be a Light for Jesus

The 4 keys that will make anyone’s life not only joyful but successful!

 I don’t like negative rules (judge me if you must but hear me out 🙂 )

“Don’t”– “No”– “You can’t”  “You musn’t”– are useful sometimes, but they make me cringe if that’s the primary outlook of how we live.

Even God, in the beginning, told Adam and Eve the positive first- “YOU MAY eat ANY of the fruit- (then followed by 1 rule in presented in the negative) but Don’t Eat of 1 tree.  God gave them so much freedom- with only 1 limiting rule.

As I see it, the Old Testament was full of “thou shalt nots” and the burden of trying to obey the letter of the law was not only impossible but discouraging.

Then Jesus!!!! Jesus comes in and clarifies things from the positive.  He summed up the 10 Commandments & all the over 500 ceremonial laws with 2 Great Positive Laws to live by.  In short- Love God and Love people.

[Tweet “It’s easier to #live life from a heart of #love than trying to follow hundreds of #rules.“]

If we can just learn to live our life by the positive criterion-

God’s LIFE commands- God’s heart decrees- then the very LIFE of God will flow from us!

Back to our family rules. 🙂  The four L’s are something Beth and I came up with after we studied Helen Keller.  She was fascinated by sign language and we played with spelling words.  As I dropped Bethany off at school last year for the first time, a sign language code of sorts, evolved which summed up what I wanted her to think about her behavior while she was at school- how she should behave.

If there is anything Bethany has taught me it’s that SIMPLE is BEST!!!!

We make a sign language “L” four times as we’re saying –

[Tweet “Our 4 L’s in Life-“Listen and Learn! Love and be a Light!””]

When Finley first heard it, she always wanted to add, “and obey your teacher, right Nana?”

I said, “Of course obeying your teacher is good but if we’re listening and learning, we’re loving our teacher and classmates and being the light Jesus wants us to be, I think that covers all the bases.  You don’t have to worry about “obeying” because you will be walking in love and light!”

Sometimes, I think we just get all hung up on the negatives: the don’ts and the “list” of should nots.  Don’t interrupt, don’t be rude, don’t be lazy, don’t be fussy, don’t complain, don’t slouch, don’t forget to do your homework, don’t be so loud, etc…

For example: When I correct Bethany, I try to say it from the positive and ask it as a question.

I say, “Was that  being a good listener?- not “You shouldn’t interrupt. or worse- a put down- “You don’t listen very well”

(do you see how the first one is teaching her to evaluate her own behavior and motives, the 2nd is me evaluating/criticizing her behavior?)

or I say-

“Was that loving Bethany?” not “Why’d you do that?  That wasn’t nice.”

“What did you learn today?” instead of “Didn’t you learn anything?”

“How were you a light for Jesus today?” instead of “Were you a good girl today?”

It’s not that those other ways are wrong but I want to learn to examine her heart and actions.  I want Bethany to learn to evaluate how she is living life- not by a list of do’s and don’ts and negative, excessive admonishments which kids (people) tend to tune out anyway- but by 4 easy ways to evaluate if she’s living her life in God’s best way for her-

Listening and Learning-  Loving and Being a Light for Jesus!

It makes Living so easy! 🙂

I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart!”  Psalm 40:8  NLT