You Can Teach Your Children

When God took his people out of Egypt, He presented to them, through Moses, His first love message, in the form of words and objects so they would begin to understand Who He was. Then he told them that parents were to teach them to their children on a daily basis, when they arose, when they walked together, when they ate together, and when they went to bed. It was to be taught continuously. The entire family was to function in relationship. In recent times we have chosen to ignore God’s plan and go with the flow, so to speak. Our children have been handed to others to teach them what the society thinks is best for them. Let’s examine what we could be doing, and see if God’s model would serve our children better.

God has made each child unique. As we shall see later, the person who knows the children best, has the best opportunity to teach them. The parents obviously know the children better than anyone else does. In fact, mothers know their children best! They have developed a bond that was formed before their birth, and was quickly enriched in the first few days of their lives. Throughout their formative years a mother’s bond is built. Throughout life it is the source of a rich relationship. It has a somewhat different meaning for a daughter than it has for a son. It is, ultimately, a powerful influence on a child’s understanding of the physical and the spiritual.

In the physical realm a girl learns what it means to be feminine and how to mother her family later. In the spiritual realm a daughter and son also learn something of the heart of God from their mother, in ways that men cannot express.

They learn the value of relationship and love, so they will be able to function in the roles God has already laid out for them. To her son, a mother also becomes his ideal of a perfect wife – the one he will search for as a life partner. The mother, in accepting her son as a man, begins to build him up to face adult responsibilities by showing respect for his positive character qualities.

A father’s bonding begins a little later, but not too much. At birth, the child already knows the sound of father’s voice and as the father helps provide contact and provision, the baby begins to bond with him. The father’s presence and interaction with the growing child helps develop a full foundation for growth and development. Specifically, a father is the one who can demonstrate to a son what it means to be masculine, and how to recognize himself as a man when he reaches his early teens. The son’s positive character traits can be built on, by the father, through the reward of honour and respect. To his daughter, Dad becomes her vision of an ideal man – the one she will wait for and marry. In the spiritual realm, father’s most important role is to demonstrate on a day-to-day basis, as many of the attributes of God, that he can provide.

God expects us parents to do our absolute best to emulate the nature of God to our children on a day-by-day basis! Such an ideal needs to be taken seriously with the knowledge that we are not expected to perform this perfectly or on our own strength! Over and over in scripture the attributes of God are compared to, and illustrated by, family relationships.

A healthy family is often the starting point for a son or daughter finding God. This could be seen as an impossible task if we were expected to do it on our own. However, with our hand in God’s, we need to begin.

With daily prayer and commitment, God will work wonders through us. It is God’s program, and He knows us and our children far better than we do. He also knows that when we are committed to doing His work His way, we will be blessed beyond measure! We will succeed if we think of ourselves as a thin, flexible “kid glove” that we hold up each day so our God can place His hand in us to do His work. The result is that the fruits of the Spirit will become evident and show themselves in the character that develops in parents and also in the children. If father or mother are focussed in other directions, then the children will assume that God, also, is too busy to be bothered with them.

Jesus’ final words to His followers, just before He left to return to heaven, were stated outside Bethany. He said we all were to “preach”, “teach”, and “make disciples”. We have tended to blur these all into one idea, and then to give it to someone else to fulfill. That was not what we were told to do. We have delegated the “teach” to public schools, and the “preach” to pastors. The “make disciples” is, in most cases, left to happen on its own. However, Jesus used these three to show that there are three levels of knowing. We are to be involved in all three! Our children will flourish when we determine to follow Jesus’ commands.

In the church we have tended to leave the “preaching” to the pastor on Sundays. Hopefully, our children are being taught in small groups in a Sunday School class. During the week, we have left the “teaching” to the community school teachers. We are hoping that “discipling” will just happen. I strongly believe that many of the negative things that have happened in the last fifty years have something to do with our wrong choices. However, I also believe that we have been given a way to correct our mistakes.

We can take back our given commission and function the way God asked us to. If we do this, we can expect our families to become stronger and our churches to become thriving communities.