Our Busy Little World
Feb. 13, 2007 - On Training Little Ones
There's been a study at our church over the past few months for parents of preschool age children. It has to do, largely, with training our children in righteousness. We've only been able to attend a couple of times, but it's been such a blessing, as well as a wonderful reminder of many things we may have let slip. One thing that's been the most encouraging to me is that there are a couple of different teachers rotating - all godly men with wonderful, faithful families. And while they are all implementing the same biblical principles, there is such variety in the methods they employ in teaching their little ones. It's been an encouragement that though our family culture and the way we apply certain principles may look different, it is truly God's grace working through these things to produce "the peaceful fruit of righteousness" in our families. There are times when I begin to feel stressed that what we do with our children doesn't look exactly like "Shepherding A Child's Heart", "Raising Godly Tomatoes", or "To Train Up A Child" (since it can't possibly look like all three at the same time!), and Matt gently reminds me that our family is our family - we are different than every other family. The commonality, and the reason why the people who have shared their wisdom in these and other books have faithful families is because of God's grace. His grace abounds to us as we work through faith in His promises, and we diligently seek to teach, train, and discipline our children according to His word. One of my favorite passages about discipline is Hebrews 12:9-11 "Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." This passage reminds me that as fathers and mothers we can only discipline our children as seems best to us (never with God's perfection), based on diligent study of God's word. The beauty of it is, that although we are never "perfect" in our methods, God allows our discipline to produce the "peaceful fruit of righteousness".
Comments
Feb. 15, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
Great post, Melissa. I know I often feel the same way- guilty or something because our parenting isn't exactly like Raising Godly Tomatoes or the Pearls. But you're right- it's important to remember that this is *our* family and it's okay if we do things a bit differently. Thanks for the reminder-I needed that today!
