5 things you can do as a parent that will honor God.
Model Jesus – You have all heard in the real estate business the most important factor is "location, location, location." In parenting, I believe the most important factor is "example, example, example." More specifically I would encourage you to be an example that models Jesus. Children will hear what you say and sometimes they will listen but they will usually do what they see you doing. Hopefully what you say agrees with what you are doing. We all know you are not Jesus, including your children, but they need to see you trying to live as Jesus would live in your situation. Make sure you are modeling Jesus because of what Jesus is doing in you. If you present "Jesus" so you look good and are not sincere, your children will see through it eventually and God will not be honored.
Here is a list of some things to model for your children:
- Model His love and compassion for people
- Model His patience
- Model His forgiveness
- Model His humility
- Model His passion for God
- Model His doing the right thing even though it was hard
- Model reading and studying the Bible
This is not a complete list—you can probably think of some things that are not mentioned here. Leave a comment and let us know if you think of other ways to model Jesus.
Model Jesus in your everyday life—your children will learn from your example. When you model Jesus before your children God is honored.
Love – Love your children no matter what. Let them know you love them even though you may not like what they are doing. Demonstrate through your daily life that you love them and nothing can change that. Children need to know they are loved just as you need to know that God loves you. Allow the love that God pours into your life to spill over into the lives of your children. I like to use the illustration of a glass of water. Imagine you are a glass and water represents God's love. Most of the time when you fill a glass with water you stop before you get to the top because you don't want to overflow and spill the water. God doesn't stop pouring His love into your life when you are full, He continues to pour and eventually you will overflow with God's love. When you are filled to overflowing the love will spill out onto the people around you.
When we allow the love of God to overflow into our children's lives God is honored.
Communicate – We need to communicate with our children. I am not just talking about talking at them or lecturing to them about the things they are doing but communicating with them. This involves listening to what they say with their mouth and with their body language and behaviors. It takes a lot of time and effort to communicate with them—it is much easier to talk at them rather than talk with them. Part of the problem is they don't always cooperate. You ask a question and they grunt a response or say "I don't know" or some other pat answer that never seems to change. As the parent you need to find a way to communicate with them even when they don't seem to want to communicate with you. Think about the ways God communicates with you even when you are not spending time with Him as you should. God communicates with us through circumstances or people around us. We must make the effort to communicate with our children. We communicate with our children because we love them, because we have a desire to know them and be involved in their lives, and because we have a responsibility to help shape their personality, values, and goals for life.
When we learn how to really communicate with our children we play an active part in shaping their lives and their future relationship with God and God is honored.
Read the Bible – Most of you would agree that it is important for you to read your Bible for your own study and relationship with God. It is also important for your children to see you reading and studying the Bible. I don't mean to do it for show but read and study for yourself but do it, at least some of the time, with your children around. In doing this you will teach them a respect for the Word. As I've already said your children will be more likely to do what you do than what you say. In addition to this I want to encourage you to read and study the Bible with your children. This can be done in many ways. I would love to hear some ways you read and study the Bible with your children.
When you read and study the Bible with your children God is honored.
Pray – There are two parts to this—not only should we pray for our children but we should pray with our children. I encourage you, if you are not already doing so, to pray for your children every day. Some things to pray for your children are for health, growth, development, relationships, problems they are having, school, salvation, etc. In addition, I would encourage you to pray for their future—spouse, career, relationship with God, relationship with others. The second part of this is to pray with your children. We can help them pray for things they may not know how to pray for and also we can help them learn how to pray.
When we pray for and with our children God is honored.
As I was writing this post I realized I could not limit myself to just 5 ways…so, rest assured there will be at least 5 more ways coming soon.
Please leave a comment and tell your thoughts about this post.
God bless you real good!
Tim
