I hate love it when the Lord hits me over the head with a 2x4 speaks to me like He did yesterday. We were in the middle of disciplining our daughter and He so gently spoke to me about my own sin in this area ...

My daughter has had a real problem lately with being argumentative. I don't know if it's the female in her or the me in her (I'm pretty argumentative myself!!), but it has really begun to get on my last nerve!

My husband and I are trying to cultivate her heart into good soil, so we feel it's important to pray about how to handle each and every situation. In my humble opinion parenting cannot be effectively done with a formula, and surely it cannot be effectively done in the flesh ... it must be done by faith. So after praying about it, yesterday my husband and I decided it was time to sit down and have a serious talk about arguing and the consequences of that behavior.

I pulled out the trusty "For Instruction in Righteousness" (I love this resource ... it makes my job a little bit easier). I began to pore over the section on arguing/contention. I prayed and asked the Lord what I should hit on. He gave me some very interesting Scriptures, to say the least.

We called our daughter in to sit down and tell her that we needed to talk to her about the arguing. We then proceeded to talk about the following:

What is the definition of argue? (just a little background on the word here ... I didn't get into the etymology of the word with her!) ...

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says:

Main Entry: ar·gue
Pronunciation: 'är-(")gyü
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): ar·gued; ar·gu·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French arguer to reprove, argue & Latin arguere to demonstrate, prove; Anglo-French arguer, from Latin argutare to prate, frequentative of arguere; akin to Hittite arkuwai- to plead, respond

intransitive verb
1 : to give reasons for or against something
2 : to contend or disagree in words

transitive verb
1 : to give evidence of
2 : to consider the pros and cons of
3 : to prove or try to prove by giving reasons
4 : to persuade by giving reasons

So then, in terms that she could understand (and for the purposes of our discussion) we told her that arguing is saying "I'm right and you're wrong and this is why". Okay, so she got that :) ... moving on ...

We proceeded to talk about some key verses that the Lord led us to hit on with her:

We talked about strife ... it's a conflict, a struggle, a fight.

Proverbs 29:22
An angry man stirs up strife,
And a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression. NASB

Proverbs 15:18
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,
But the slow to anger calms a dispute. NASB

Proverbs 3:30
Do not contend with a man without cause,
If he has done you no harm. NASB

With that last verse we talked about how she needs to think, "Is this worth arguing/fighting over?".

The next verse she did not like to her because she really does not want to be a fool:

Proverbs 20:3
Keeping away from strife is an honor for a man,
But any fool will quarrel. NASB

Okay, so ... how did the Lord speak to me? Well ... moving on ...

We then talked about

Proverbs 21:19
Better to dwell in the wilderness,
Than with a contentious and angry woman. NKJV

and

Proverbs 21:9
It is better to live in a corner of a roof
Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. NASB

oooooooooooooooooooo .... ouch! I see myself in these verses ... contentious, argumentative, even angry sometimes ... not in a way that the world would consider (I do appear to be rather submissive), but I know I am contentious in the way that God considers.

It was hard to talk about these verse with my daughter and my husband present. He never said anything, but I wondered what he thought as I talked. I thought, "I need to heed this myself! I don't want to be a wife that my husband doesn't want to be around ... that he would rather be outside on a corner ofthe roof than inside with me!"

Father God, help me to be kind and gentle, help me to be the wife you would have me to be!