Prenting: October 14, 2010

Today's Word for Thursday October 14, 2010

PARENTING

DEFINITION

The raising of children by their parents.

SCRIPTURE

Children, obey your parents, for it is right that you should. "Honor your father and mother" is the first commandment with a promise attached, in the words: "that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land." You fathers (and mothers), again, must not goad your children to resentment, but give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing. Ephesians 6: 1-4 N.E.B. Translation

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE

From the time God created Adam and Eve it was His plan and purpose that children be raised in a family. Sadly, many people have children today but have neglected their parenting responsibilities. By definition above, parenting is the rearing of children. Rearing children means taking care of them, training them and supporting them to maturity. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to "train a child in the way he should go." By definition training means developing or forming the habits, the thoughts or behavior of a child.

It is a blessing and a privilege to be a parent but with being a parent comes major responsibility. After we had children we realized that our greatest responsibility was parenting our children. We always made our children our first priority.

If we came down to a choice of whether a ministry, a job, a social event or are children, the children always came first. Today in many families very rarely will you see that commitment.

Look at these four verses above and you will see several very important principles we need to adhere to as parents and as children. Children have a responsibility to obey and honor their parents. This does not come naturally to a child. They must be taught to be obedient and respectful. In today's society this principle is constantly not adhered to by children or their parents. How can we expect children to obey and honor if they are not taught and do not have Christian role models to follow?

When we were living in Korea working with orphans we were impressed with how respectful children were and not just children but adults as well. The Korean honor and respect their elders, and children do imitate their role models.

In order to effectively parent it is necessary to discipline but discipline must be just and fair. Fathers (and mothers -- we have added) are advised in Ephesians to be careful not to do things in their teaching and correcting of their children to cause resentment. Parents are to instruct and correct in love and with consistency.

Parenting is a daily job and requires time, not just time but quality time. To parent effectively it must be scheduled. Otherwise the days go by with parents spending little or no time with their children. We learned from our parents that dinner time was a good time to keep clear for parenting. Therefore when we began our life together, we took time every day at dinner to do several things. Most importantly it gave our family a lengthy time together every day to get to know each other and to build a bond. The result, we believe today is that they are all very close and communicate regularly with one another. They are support systems for each other.

Being together every night for dinner gave each person a time to talk. We always asked each child to share with us the events of the day and they did. They included the good and the bad and even asked for prayer concerning troubling issues. It gave each of us a chance to listen. We as parents became aware of concerns and issues developing so we could talk further one on one with that child. You notice we said that it gave each of us a chance to listen. This included the children listening to each other. By doing this they became supports for each other through their crisis and issues in life. Even today when there is a need they are there for each other.

Most important at every dinner, every night we spent time reading the Bible and memorizing scripture. This allowed us all to learn to listen to God daily through His Word for direction for our lives. The Bible became relevant for each of us and a habit was developed to read God's Word. We closed every dinner time with a time of prayer. By doing this we could take to our Lord our concerns and needs and we learned as a family to thank God for all He gave to us. We learned as a family to communicate with God through prayer knowing that this provided the strength we needed to survive in the evil world we lived in.

As parents and now grandparents we challenge you as a parent reading this devotional to learn Godly principles to parent your children, as we learned them. God will honor your parenting in ways that you never believed. It is never too late in life to start. Do it today!

LEARNING

Our memory verse for this week is found in 1Thessalonians 5:17.

Pray without ceasing.

PRAYER

As a parent I come today to You asking You to give me wisdom in directing my family to apply the principles You have given us in the Bible to live by. We also pray for other families that they may realize the importance of growing their family with these Godly principles.