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It’s so tempting to look for a 3-step plan in parenting. “If you do this, this, and this, your children are guaranteed to turn out perfectly.” And yet, our children don’t need a 3-step approach; they need parents BEING Christians.
Perhaps, this is why God provides guidelines for parenting, but no step-by-step instructions: He wants us to be training disciples, not constructing assembly-line Christians. But to be disciple-makers, we must first be disciples.
Isn’t it ironic that while our own image of what we should look like as a disciple is rather fuzzy, we usually have a pretty-defined image in our heads of how we want our children to turn out–generous, evangelistic, prayerful, humble, bold in witness, compassionate. But are those things we are merely teaching without modeling those attributes to our children? Do your children see you being compassionate and bold in witness? Do they see you generous and prayerful?
No disciple is taught to be what his teacher is not (Luke 6:40).
Father, teach me to be your faithful disciple, and in your grace, work that same miracle in the lives of my children.
I’ve started the Good Morning Girls book club and have been reading this week in the Bible passages they have assigned. The first three have been a great combination of verses to meditate on: Psalm 127:1, John 15:4-5, and Matthew 6:33. I thought I’d share a little with you today, as it really moved me this morning as I was praying.
The Lord is the builder of the house and the producer of the fruit. It’s not my work. Anything that I happen to accomplish is only what the Lord in His grace and might has allowed me to accomplish. Of course, a natural application is to ask Him for strength. But, God convicted me of another point this morning. If it’s His strength I’m using, then perhaps I ought to ask Him what it is He wants to accomplish with that strength.
After all, isn’t that what a servant would do? No servant uses his master’s resources to accomplish his own purposes; he seeks first his master’s priorities.
Instead of pulling out my to-do list and approaching Almighty God with an attitude of “here it is, Lord; make it happen,” I ought to approach Him in utter humility, destitute in the spirit, and ask Him what He wants done. Then, remarkably, I can know I have the strength of the Almighty to accomplish His purpose, no matter how insurmountable it may appear.
How different my home would be if I traded my to-do list for His.
