Happy and Godly Children
February 4, 2011
Dear Friends,
My heavenly Father gave me two daughters. This past Sunday my youngest daughter joined her older sister in committing her life to Christ in the waters of baptism. Although the Apostle John meant this in a slightly different way, the words still ring true to any believer with children – “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” (3 John 1:4) It was as pleasing to me to give my daughters back to God as when he originally gave them to me.
It is always dicey to give advice on parenting. First, you risk offending someone – especially if your philosophy is not correct in their view. Second, it can be taken as a form of bragging. Third, there is always the chance that after you wax eloquent on the dos and don’t of parenthood that your child will become featured on the television show America’s Most Wanted or, even worse, The Bachelor. With both of my daughters now baptized, I feel a little more comfortable speaking about my experiences raising them but still feel a little premature in speaking out. Maybe when they are in their nineties I will feel totally comfortable. So, understanding the risks involved, I will press forward and share my perspective on raising children.
As believers, we know the huge responsibility of raising children. We understand that these are really God’s children and that our job is to help them to be first and foremost children of the Most High. We also know that parenting isn’t easy. Some of the most faithful heroes in the Bible had mixed results with their children. Many factors are not even within your control and can play a monumental role in their development. Most of us don’t receive any formal training in child rearing so it is primarily OJT – on-the-job-training.
It seems to me that the truth, at its core, is always simple and straightforward. If this is the case, this must also be true about raising children. Their whole lives, I’ve always told my children that I only wanted two things from them; for them to be godly and for them to be happy. That’s it.
These may sound like modest goals, but in this day and time, if this can be accomplished, it is no small feat. There are all kinds of pressures on kids today. Children are pressured to succeed in the classroom, in athletics and socially. Kids are taught to associate material things – clothes, cars, iPods, etc. – with happiness. Children run to and fro on busy schedules that would amaze our grandparents. Parents, who have their own stresses to succeed, often trade quality time with children to acquire more things not only for themselves but for their kids and to pay for all of those activities. It is a different world.
Sometimes those of us who are religious observe these things in society and overreact to them. Because the society around us is on such a relentless pursuit of fleeting pleasures, we sometimes teach our kids, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that enjoying our mortal lives is unimportant. Our kids can sometimes come away with the idea that holiness equates to isolation, no friends, no activities or no social life. They feel like they have to choose between life now and life in the future.
I assume that we all agree on the part about being godly or the odds are you wouldn’t be reading this. Therefore, let me take a moment to present my case that happiness is vitally important along with godliness.
We all know and agree that our hope is not on this life, but in the age to come. Yet, it does not follow and is simply not true that God expects this life to be miserable. The defining characteristics of a believer include love, joy and peace. This doesn’t sound miserable to me. Quite the opposite! It sounds wonderful. In fact, I would suggest that believers with the right mindset, on the whole, should have much better and enjoyable lives than those who choose “sin for a season.”
Some of us have bought into the concept that we are trading “fun now” for perfection in the coming Kingdom. This is wrong. We are accepting a better life now full of love, joy and peace along with a perfect future. There is no trade-off! It is a win-win situation for us. Sin, which we wrongly equate to “fun”, is not better, preferable or more fun than righteousness. It only appears that way to the uninformed. Sinners are not happier than saints. Sinners have bought into this lie. Saints certainly shouldn’t buy into it.
One of the key themes repeated many times in the book of Ecclesiastes is for God’s people to enjoy their mortal lives in the context of godliness.
And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God. (Ec 3:13)
Ecclesiastes is a book about someone who had everything but couldn’t find pleasure in it. This book teaches us that we should enjoy our lives and the blessings that God gives us but not lose sight of what is really important. It was this lesson that I tried to instill in my children. Let’s enjoy our lives every day and in all circumstances. God’s truth and happiness are not incompatible. In fact, I would suggest that true happiness is aligned very closely with a godly life. Think about all of the landmines we minimize that steal our joy when we are truly godly people: selfishness, anger, bitterness, addictions, superficial relationships, materialism, hate, gossip, greed, etc. True, we can’t avoid all of these things, but we certainly should have less of these things than the average person for sure. We should gravitate towards people of like characteristics too. We do this not out of a sense of duty or self-righteousness, but because it is natural for the proverbial birds of a feather to flock together.
With these two simple goals in mind, as a parent, you find it easy to pick and choose which battles you wish to engage in. I didn’t let them give thanks to God for the food and then turn around and complain about it. I tried to teach them to be mindful of people less fortunate. I tried to teach them that having fun was great but we needed to make sure we did the things God wanted us to do. I taught them to do their best in whatever they did to honor God and Christ. The only pressure that I think they felt was their own drive to honor God by using their God-given gifts to the best of their ability.
In case you are wondering, my children were also quite successful in the classroom, socially and athletically. I say this to answer the objection that we must stress those other things in order to have well-rounded, successful children. They succeeded because they were trying to honor God in all aspects of their life, not because mommy and daddy were putting pressure on them.
The bottom-line is that we can’t make our children serve God or live joyful lives. We can love them, give them good advice and try to set a good example for them, but in the end, they are going to do what they want to do. In the end, we have to do like we do in all aspects of our life; do our best and leave the rest to God. However, it seems to me we can do them a great favor by making our expectations of them clear and simple.
Have a great week,
Comments»
I am reminded of the parable of the 10 virgins. Some had oil and some did not when the bridegrrom came. That is the only difference. All had lamps, all slept.
Using the principle that God tells us in Scripture how to interpret parables if we read carefully, I have found that the one thing that we can not give to some one else is the “oil of gladness”. God tells us twice that it is “oil of gladness”.
Serving with joy or gladness is what matters. It isn’t just about service. Especially service as duty.
Nice to celebrate with you your daughters choice to serve with gladness.