The other day I noticed the leaves were beginning to change. It seemed rather strange since we have barely had a day with temperatures below ninety degrees in months. Even though cooler weather seems to speed up the change a bit, God must have placed the trees on some sort of timer…when it’s time, those leaves are going to change. It’s God’s timing for this part of His creation.
One of the most difficult concepts for your children to understand and accept is the idea of God’s timing. None of us like to wait for something we want or think we need. Children and teens may have a particularly difficult time waiting for the things they have asked God to provide.
If your children can speak, you probably realize they consider you and anyone else close to your age “old”. I laugh now, because I will talk to friends from home and they will mention someone is “getting older”. In my memory, that person had to be at least in their 60’s or 70’s when I was a child. Inevitably, I will ask “What?! Isn’t she over 100 by now?” Usually, I realize the “old” person had actually been only in their 30’s or 40’s when I was little!
I’m not sure when it happened, but over the last several decades parenting has changed drastically. Not all of these changes are bad. Unfortunately though, some parenting “experts” are ignoring basic truths that also undermine Christian parenting. The church has changed too. Sin is rarely mentioned. Consequences are almost never discussed. The focus is only on celebrating God’s love for us.
How many Bible stories have your children heard? If they are like most regular church attendees, they probably hear between 20 and 30 Bible stories during their childhood. If you don’t have regular family devotionals, they may never hear many more than that. When we started Teach One Reach One (our parent ministry), we counted the Bible stories we thought were appropriate for children (we skipped a couple involving rapes) and came up with 207. Now one could probably group them differently and come up with a slightly changed number, but you see the gap.
For some time now, I have wanted to have an older teen or college student write their view of Christian parenting to share with you. It gives a lot of insight to understand how Christian homes actually touch the thought processes of the children raised in them.