Article 2: The Privilege of PARENTING – By Mark Worden
Reaching our Goal: Application
I made a good start when I discovered that our goal as parents, according to Proverbs 22:6, was to start our daughter on the pathway of developing godly character throughout her life. However, I needed a standard to judge whether or not my child was on the path. I needed to be able to quickly discern when I needed to correct what was coming out of the heart of my child by way of her mouth.
My wife who had been doing most of the child raising up to about age 5 was always talking about kindness, truthfulness, and obedience. Were those character qualities biblical? As I considered the Scriptures I found that they were and that my wife was really doing a very good job. That is why at age 5 Christina respected my wife but had very little respect for me. Things began to change when Dad began to take his God-given responsibilities seriously by doing what did not come naturally to him—correct his daughter in a spirit of love and conviction that she needed to be kind, true, and obedient as the Bible commands. It was not long until kindness, truthfulness, and obedience became the standard of conduct for the whole family. We needed to demonstrate and live up to the same standard to which we were holding our daughter.
The following verses have helped us to work on these character qualities as a family: Be kind–Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Be true –I Corinthians 13:6 and John 8:32 where we read that love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth,” and that “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Be obedient– Ephesians 6:1, “Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” And Colossians 3:20, “Children obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” These three general rules for conduct seem to cover about everything in our relationships and have helped us to encourage each other to be what God wants us to be.
These character qualities will grow out of a heart of love. The problems comes when we are not being loving—then it is easy to be mean, to tell a lie, to steal, or to disobey. In fact it is not only easy, it is even quite enjoyable. But the Bible reveals that sin only brings pleasure for a short period of time (Hebrews 11:25). As parents we need to guard our own hearts from taking pleasure in disobeying God’s will. As we read in Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
With God’s help, we as parents must demonstrate a life of kindness and truthfulness. We must be examples of obedience to God and to the governmental authorities that the Lord has placed over us. We need to hold our children and ourselves to these standards of conduct. If we sin, we need to confess our sin to God and make things right with our children. If our children sin, we need to correct and discipline them as the Bible instructs us to do in the book of Proverbs (we will consider these passages in future articles, but you may want to look at them now– Proverbs 13:24, 22:15, 23:13-14, 19:18, 29:15, 29:17).
By paying attention to the actions and words of our children, we will be able to train, dedicate, and start our children on the path that God has for them to walk. This is a path of love, which emanates kindness, truthfulness, and obedience. When we hear a word or see an action that is not kind, true, or obedient we must faithfully correct and discipline them in order to keep them on the path that God has promised from which they will not depart when they are old (Proverbs 22:6). We are warned in Proverbs 13:24 “ He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes [early, quickly].” Do you hate or love your children? The way you train and discipline will reveal what is really in your heart. May God grant us the grace we need to love our children with loving discipline as we should.
Copyrighted 2002
