It reminds me of the young preacher, fired up about the family, who entitled his message, “Rules for Raising Children.” After he had children of his own he renamed it, “Suggestions for Dealing with Kids.” When his children became teenagers he quit preaching on the subject altogether.
Well, certainly I am no expert on raising children either. But I have to say that God has indeed blessed our family richly. Our now 13-year-old son Tyler is growing into a fine young man, and Toby at age 8 is still quite a ham, but a cute ham.
Parenting children of any age is not easy. Sometimes it’s downright hard. And especially for those single parents out there, I’m praying for you this morning. Between my wife and me it’s tough enough. I can’t imagine doing it solo. May God give you an extra measure of strength and patience and fortitude and grace and wisdom.
At the risk of sounding like I know what I’m doing, I want to encourage you, parents and grandparents, with a few words about our experience raising our two boys, so far. And let the record show, as well, that my wife takes on the greater load of the day in and day out work involved. By the way, make no mistake about it – it takes work!
So here are three things (among others) that we do as parents. Not to say we’ve got it all figured out. Far from it. We make mistakes and get upset and miss the bigger picture, too. But God has been good in spite of our shortcomings.
One, we love our children sacrificially. Love means action, not just warm, fuzzy feelings. We love by providing for their needs, protecting them from harm, giving them our time and attention, showing interest in their interests, encouraging their dreams, helping them reach their goals, speaking kind and uplifting words and not calling them names or talking down to them, disciplining them appropriately when they cross the boundaries, and a million things more that means we might have to give up our preferences and agendas to show love to our children. See 1 Corinthians 13 for a greater definition of what love is, and love them like that.
Two, we teach our children by instruction and by example. This is our responsibility as parents. We teach them the right way to go. We teach them to love the Lord and His Word. We teach them to love the church. We don’t assume they’ll just get it. There are too many other voices that would lead them astray. We teach them what’s right. And we strive to live out what we say we believe. Usually they’ll learn more by what is “caught” than what is “taught.” It takes the verbal instruction and life examples.
Three, we pray unceasingly. We pray with thanksgiving for our children. They are treasures from the Lord. We pray with dependence upon Him for daily wisdom and guidance. We pray for our children and pray with our children. We know this job is too big and the responsibility too awesome for us to handle on our own. We need God’s help, and we’re not afraid or ashamed to ask for it. After all, He knows them and loves them better than we do, so we rely upon His guidance as we raise them.
I hope that offers you some help and encouragement today. God bless you as you strive to honor Him in how you raise your children. And, after a few more years of this, I reserve the right to re-write this article, and I may come to you for help!
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