1 Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. 2 “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: 3 If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.
S(cripture) - Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
O(bservation) - Honor. The Hebrew word for honor here is "kah-bed," whose root word means "weighty." It's the same word used in describing the proper relationship we are to have with God. When God says "Honor your father and mother," He is saying recognize and live into the importance your parents deserve in your life.
Is this a carte-blanche command? We should honor our parents no matter what? Do all parents deserve honor? (short answer - persons may be honored without deserving that honor - it's in the attitude of the giver, not the value of the receiver - the essence of grace)
Michelle with her work at William Paca Elementary will come home grieving at the children who through apathetic parenting have very little chance of succeeding in life - their "destiny" in place before the age of seven. And on the other side are parents who truly love their children and God - who find themselves with a "prodigal" child - the rebel without a cause. (There is no magic formula - if there were, that book would likely outsell the Bible!) Watch any episode of Dr. Phil and 7/10 deal with parent/child issues.
Jenn Branson posted this dam**d if you do dam**d if you don't satire on parenting on her facebook page.
While it takes a license to drive a car, a license for marriage, sadly, there is no requirement other than a rudimentary knowledge of human sexuality to become a parent. And everyone in culture pays for that. It takes a nuclear family, an extended family, a village, a church to raise a child. We need help if we ever hope to have our children truly honor us with the "weight" that comes from a life well-lived, a Kingdom life, a life of simplicity.
A(pplication) - This we must also know. It will do us no good to circle the wagons - protecting our children from "others" who lack whatever values we value. Our call is not to be defensive in our faith, but to recognize that He who is in us, is greater than he who is in the world. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. The struggles and differences my children face at school have almost all been opportunities to talk deeply about how our faith and their faith impacts how they would deal with the pain experienced by their friends. Our faith is strengthened in doubt.
When your children (my kids are already there) are old enough, they will "smell" whether our faith is authentic and whether our friends in church truly love one another. Our task as parents and grandparents is to not relegate the discipling of our children to youth group or to Sunday School or to a parachurch groups like Chrysalis or Young Life. (this is not to dismiss what they offer) But our task is to be actively involved in the faith training and spiritual formation of our children. Which means we must be actively involved in our own faith training and spiritual formation (the smell test). Will we use the dinner table, the car ride home after gatherings, the painful and joyful events life brings us to connect our children to God?
Not that we are perfect (far from it and our kids know this better than anyone!), but even in our imperfection comes perfect faith - authenticity that recognizes our great need for God's grace.
We live in a world in desperate need of good parents. We live in a world in desperate need of God's grace. May we all stand at that intersection so that one day our children and the friends of our children will find us weighty and honor us and then discover that our weight comes from a weighty God who deserves all the honor, glory and praise.
P(rayer) - Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Jenn Branson posted this dam**d if you do dam**d if you don't satire on parenting on her facebook page.
While it takes a license to drive a car, a license for marriage, sadly, there is no requirement other than a rudimentary knowledge of human sexuality to become a parent. And everyone in culture pays for that. It takes a nuclear family, an extended family, a village, a church to raise a child. We need help if we ever hope to have our children truly honor us with the "weight" that comes from a life well-lived, a Kingdom life, a life of simplicity.
A(pplication) - This we must also know. It will do us no good to circle the wagons - protecting our children from "others" who lack whatever values we value. Our call is not to be defensive in our faith, but to recognize that He who is in us, is greater than he who is in the world. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. The struggles and differences my children face at school have almost all been opportunities to talk deeply about how our faith and their faith impacts how they would deal with the pain experienced by their friends. Our faith is strengthened in doubt.
When your children (my kids are already there) are old enough, they will "smell" whether our faith is authentic and whether our friends in church truly love one another. Our task as parents and grandparents is to not relegate the discipling of our children to youth group or to Sunday School or to a parachurch groups like Chrysalis or Young Life. (this is not to dismiss what they offer) But our task is to be actively involved in the faith training and spiritual formation of our children. Which means we must be actively involved in our own faith training and spiritual formation (the smell test). Will we use the dinner table, the car ride home after gatherings, the painful and joyful events life brings us to connect our children to God?
Not that we are perfect (far from it and our kids know this better than anyone!), but even in our imperfection comes perfect faith - authenticity that recognizes our great need for God's grace.
We live in a world in desperate need of good parents. We live in a world in desperate need of God's grace. May we all stand at that intersection so that one day our children and the friends of our children will find us weighty and honor us and then discover that our weight comes from a weighty God who deserves all the honor, glory and praise.
P(rayer) - Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
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