In my last blog, I talked about the importance of my children understanding that their obedience isn’t required by me or my husband, but by God. What I mean by that is that the order of things was set up by God himself. . .not by mom or dad.
I think most parents understand the psychology of requiring obedience, consequences, and consistency. All of our pop psychology books are filled with these ideas. Gosh, even the Super Nanny has the naughty chair–a consequence for misbehavior.
If you have found yourself struggling to bring your child into obedience, I am going to suggest to you that perhaps you are missing the second part of Ephesians 6:1-4: ‘Parents, don’t exacerbate your children but instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
But I’m Doing That
“They know all the commandments, they memorize Scripture and it’s still not working!” I have to pose this question, and I want you to think about it honestly: Are you focusing on the ‘rules’ part of God’s instruction? Do your children think of God as someone who might smote them for an infraction? Or do they really know and sense the awesomeness and glory of God? Because you see, part of bringing them up in the training and instruction of the Lord is teaching them about God’s character; His Glory; His Majesty and just how simply awesome He is. If they don’t understand that, then obedience–even consistent obedience–is useless.
Communicating the Glory of God
I propose to you that if our children are failing to see the glory of God, it’s because we’ve failed to communicate it to them. We’ve managed to give a picture of a relationship with God that’s based on rules. . .rather than God’s loving kindness. We’ve succeeded in showing God as Holy, but we’ve failed in showing God as Father.
But God is gracious to us parents. Consider reading Job 40 and 41 as an awe inspiring account of God’s mighty acts. The move over to Exodus and talk about how God saved Israel and brought down Egypt. Read the Psalms, and note how God named the stars and knows them by name, how he clothes the flowers in the fields, how He answers prayer. And who are we that He should be concerned with us? But He is. The truth is that I could write a thousand more pages, and still have barely scratched the surface with regards to the glory of God. Do your children know that?
Valorie Delp shares recipes in the food blog, parenting tips, breastfeeding helps, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.