How old are your kids? No matter how young they are, I would imagine you can already see signs of their growing independence. In what will seem like a manner of minutes, your children will probably move out of your home to begin their adult lives. You won’t have the ability to point them towards God throughout the day in your home. Your kids will need to know how to keep themselves healthy spiritually. If not, their faith will quickly wither and die.
Many of the things that help us grow and mature spiritually are things your kids can make habits in their lives. Just like eating healthy foods and exercising can keep their bodies as healthy as they can be, there are habits that will help your children stay strong spiritually. Doing these things regularly will give God opportunities to work on their hearts, while also letting them know what God wants from them and for them in life. They will help strengthen your children’s faith, so they will be prepared when the inevitable storms of life arise.
So what habits can you help your child establish so they can continue growing and maturing spiritually throughout their lives? There are probably quite a few, but here are four I believe are essential for spiritual health and growth:
Unless you have been living on another planet for the last few years, you may have noticed there is an increasing lack of kindness in our world. It seems everyone has lost the filter that keeps them from saying and doing every hurtful, hateful thing that enters their minds. Sadly, even Christians have not seemed to be totally immune to this virus of unkindness.
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.
Our family was introduced to the Harris brothers about the time the first edition of this book came out several years ago. Our then young teen daughter loved reading the book and realizing she wasn’t the only kid on the planet who made God, serving others and sharing their faith priorities in their lives.
Sluggard is one of those great Bible words we don’t use in regular conversation very often. Yet, the Bible actually has quite a bit to say about sluggards. As someone who considers myself a person who accomplishes more than most in the course of an average day, I never thought much about sluggards.