Years ago, when all the world was new, and I was a young mother, a colleague of my husband's asked me to speak to her Sociology class about family. I accepted her request, and as I thought through what this parenting job really had committed us to, God used the opportunity to provide priceless direction to our little fledgling family.
First of all, I realized I had been so focused on establishing a Christian marriage and a Christian home that I wasn't seeing God's bigger plan: to use the family unit as a tool to mature believers into fully-equipped members of the Body. It's through our relationships that the everyday lessons, the training, and the dying to self take place for the WHOLE family - beginning with me!
Well, that initial realization sure took the Christian pride right out of my sails! It's easy to think that the lessons of the New Testament should be applied elsewhere - in a church or in a classroom. Certainly not in the kitchen with hungry, grumpy children, a tired spouse, and supper to cook. But in reality, the Christian family is where the action is - it's where spiritual growth happens!
With this for background, I’ll talk about our first step in setting forth as rookies. I believe God helped us to realize we needed something concrete to give us direction with our parenting. This happened to be a “mission statement,” just like many organizations develop to give focus and direction to their endeavors.
Ours was pretty straight forward: As instruments of God, we will train our young children to hear and obey our voice, so that when they are grown, they will be able to hear and obey God’s voice.
Ultimately, we wanted our children to be mature adults in the body of Christ.
As I am writing this, I’m amazed at the wisdom God had in leading us to make this statement! This simple statement became salvation for us as struggling young parents in the 70’s and 80’s when society was telling us that careers, money, and affluence were all-important. It became the principle measure and reason for what we were trying to do with our children. Here are some examples:
- It set the right motive for training and discipline. It helped us see that these were not for our own pleasure or comfort. They were for our children - to help them become secure Christian adults.
- It guided us in everyday home life. For instance, my husband and I made the decision never to see an R-rated movie or have one shown in our home. Things that weren’t uplifting and constructive for us weren’t moving us forward in our own growth much less our children’s. We, too, had to “hear” God’s voice as we were training the children to hear ours.
- It helped us choose activities for our kids. More importantly, it caused us to look at our own motives for involving our children in things offered in our community. Whether it was ballet or baseball, we could ask ourselves: Is this activity furthering their development, or is it to boost our own pride? Does this activity line up with our mission statement? It made decision-time easier.
As we negotiated through our parenting years, we weren’t perfect. We made human mistakes, just as our parents did before us, but having this simple statement gave us the courage and the edge we needed. Now, forty years later, as we watch our grown children with their own families, we can affirm that God is faithful to His word and blesses honorable work!
