Skip to main content

A+B+C= What?



How do you raise kids who are God-fearing individuals who will the love the Lord their whole life?


I don't know.


Disappointed in my answer? Yeah...me too.


My mom always used to say that spending time on her knees before the Lord did a whole lot more than anything else she ever tried. With a young adult in my house, a couple of teenagers and a preteen, I truly understand the wisdom of those words. Like many parents starting out with their first child, I had grandiose ideas of what my child would or wouldn't do. If I only followed the guidelines, applied the formula and threw in a bit of common sense, surely I would have a compliant, obedient child.


Wrong! No matter what book I read or method I tried, I was still netting the same result. I wasn't completely surprised. It seems to be in my family's nature to not follow the rules. Child rearing proved to give me the same challenge.


For example, I was determined that none of my children would suck their thumbs. I made sure my first child had a pacifier and I religiously made sure she had it so that she wouldn't reach for her thumb or fingers. When she cried, I "plugged" her up. She had decided very early on that she didn't care for the pacifier and preferred her thumb instead. I would gently pull the thumb out and put the pacifier back in. At some point though, the pacifier would be out and the thumb back in. One day when she was three months old, she was happily sucking on her thumb and smiling at me. I pulled her thumb out and stuck the pacifier in. She made this hideous face and slowly pushed the pacifier out with her tongue. As soon as it was out, the thumb went back in. That day, I decided that this was not a battle worth fighting. She cooed sweetly and went off to sleep, never aware that she had broken the rules--or at least, my rules.


Along came #2 who also sucked his thumb, then #3 with the same affection for his thumb. #4 was a different matter all together. He seemed quite happy with a pacifier, but instead of being tied to a thumb, we were now tied to a pacifier. We had some in every color and variety and a stash in nearly every room of the house. At around 18 months, I began to wean him off the pacifier. It seemed to be succeeding and I was thrilled that after having three children attached to their thumbs, it seemed that I was going to have this one off of the pacifier by age 2. It worked! He was completely weaned off of the pacifier. He then decided to take up a new habit--sucking his thumb.


So much for that bounty of wisdom. And what does that story have to do with raising kids who love the Lord?


Just this. Applying a method or formula to raising your kids doesn't always net the desired result. There are lots of parenting books, methods, styles and formulas out there designed to get your kids to not only obey, but to be "good Christian kids". While I applaud many of the ideas and intentions of the authors of these ideas, it has been my experience that even when one method works on one child, it doesn't necessarily work on all of them. Just when you think you've figured something out, the next one in line comes up and changes the plan.


What does work is consistency, prayer and realizing that they belong to the Lord. He has entrusted those kiddos to you only for a little while. Your job is to teach, to guide, to mentor and to prepare the warriors for the spiritual battles that they will face. (Notice I said "will" face--not "might".) Don't lose heart and don't give up. What you are doing is a great and mighty work for the Lord!


The other thing that I finally figured out after losing many battles or watching my children make mistakes, is that my job is not to raise godly children. WHAT?!?! Yes---you read that right. My job is not to raise godly children. My job is to be a godly parent. Deuteronomy 6:5 says this: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." While this is the greatest command and we have a hard time just doing this, our job doesn't stop there. Verses 6-9 tell us how to be godly parents."These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (HCSB, 2003)


Notice that there is no instruction or command to raise godly children. The command is for us to be godly parents. Ready for the challenge? Let's go!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Circle of Friends

Yesterday, a friend of mine posted that his mother had passed on.  I was sad for him. I had known his mother as she and his dad had both given me many rides to church during high school.  She was one of the nicest people I had known.  I remembered she worried a lot about him and being in the thralls of being a teenage boy, he often dismissed her concerns. Both of his parents are now with the Lord and while I know he rejoices at that thought, I too, know that kind of loss.   Last week another friend posted that her mother had passed on.  Again, sadness came over me, but I was glad I had known her mother, even if only for a short while. What these two friends had in common is that they were part of a larger circle of friends that I grew up with at church.  Many of the friends in this circle I have known since elementary school. Some I met in Jr. High and some high school. Some of us attended the same schools together, but most of us did not.  Yet, we w...
Post a Comment
Read more

And yet...

I tend to avoid political rhetoric on any social media forum, but I am compelled to write a few brief thoughts and I hope you will really listen. As a life-long American, I grew up saluting the American flag, singing the National Anthem with pride and held dear in my heart all things patriotic and noble. I was taught to respect the office of President, regardless of who held the office. I was taught that voting was not only my civic duty, but that giving up my right to vote was paramount to spitting on the graves of the soldiers who had died to preserve my right to vote, my right to speak freely, and my right to worship as I chose. Honestly, not much of that has changed in my heart, but like many of you, my heart is wearied this season. Hopelessness? Yes. Fear? Yes. Anxiety over the future of our country? Yes. Honestly, regardless of which side of the political fence you fall on, these thoughts seem to be a common theme. Fear is the biggest one I see storming most of the ...
2 comments
Read more

Throwing a Tantrum

You might be assuming by the title of this blog that I will be talking about 2 and 3 years old kids, but I'm not.  I'm talking about me.  Yep. You got that right.  Me.  I threw a pretty good tantrum a couple of weeks ago.  I was trying to pack up to leave for a weekend away and had gone to the laundry room to throw in a quick load of clothes I needed for the trip.  When I opened the washer, it was full of clothes.  I opened the dryer, which was also full of clothes. I then looked at the laundry basket and someone had taken MY clothes out of the dryer and thrown them in the laundry basket without me knowing it.  The clothes had not only been sitting there wadded up in the basket, but our lovely cat had decided that a basket full of clean clothes was the perfect place to nap.  While this is not the first time for this kind of incident in our home, I decided that day that it was to be the last time it would ever happen.  I started yelling...
Post a Comment
Read more