A young boy recently won a major acting award. The media is going crazy over this kid and his behavior during his acceptance speech. When I finally saw a clip, I realized he actually was just a well-behaved, pleasant, gracious, joyful child.
Ever wonder why God calls us and our children to be salt and light to the world? Those two things are so important to life. If you do not have them, you feel real pain. You will look around in a desperate search for anyone who has them. (In our salt soaked world that is hard to imagine, but think about how badly you want to see the sun after a couple of cloudy weeks.)
God wants our kids to stand out in their world. He wants the adults and other kids who see them to find them as refreshing and hopeful as seeing the sun after weeks of rain. By raising your kids to be salt and light to those around them, they will naturally draw others to them.
Ever feel like you are trying to juggle seventeen balls at once, but keep dropping them? Parenting can be overwhelming at times. Trying to be a Christian parent and point your kids towards God seems like it adds a whole additional layer of to-do’s to your already multi-page list. Parenting your children so they grow to be active, productive Christians just seems impossible at times.
It happens to me every single year. We have a large yard with lots of flower borders and pine islands. Every summer I promise myself that the next spring I will get out before the weeds and do all of the things you are supposed to do so you aren’t weeding all summer long. Inevitably life gets in the way and I don’t get out there until the weeds have made their appearance everywhere. I know if I could ever nip the weed situation in the bud, my summers would involve a lot less yard work. For some reason though, I never nip it in the bud and find myself doing a lot of extra and potentially unnecessary work.
Does your family have some favorite family stories? You know, the ones told so many times everyone knows the words by heart. Do you remember the words to your favorite song from high school? When it comes on the radio, can you crank it up and sing it like you did back then? You probably can even picture the car you drove when the song was popular or picture other scenes from that time as you sing along years later.
Ever complemented a parent on how wonderful their child is only to be told “I wish he/she were that way at home”? For some reason we say it bothers us, but tend to tolerate children who are unkind, disrespectful and down right mean and ugly at home. We tell ourselves it was because they had a bad day, their hormones are raging or it’s part of growing up in today’s world. We console ourselves that at least their behavior outside of the home is godly.