In 1997, I was able to marry my wonderful wife. In 1998, our first child came into this world - a bouncing baby boy! We were such happy and proud parents who were thankful to God for this amazing gift. My wife and I both were already believers in Jesus Christ and had decided long before our first child was born into this world that we would be praying for him every day. But how does one pray for someone not yet born into this world? Once we realized my wife was pregnant, we talked and came to a decision that we would begin to pray for our child’s salvation and sexual purity every day until this child was married. He is now 21 years old, and we continue to pray for him to keep working out his salvation and for his and for his future wife’s sexual purity, whoever that may be. As far as we all know, including him, we haven’t met her yet.
We now have six children (two boys and four girls) that range in ages from 12 to 21 years. My wife and I continue to this day to pray for our children to continue to work out their salvation in order to grow and to become mature and complete, not lacking anything, as well as for their and their future spouses’ sexual purity until they are married. We believe that praying together and coming in agreement to the Lord on this topic is very important. You need to be of one mind with your spouse, as a house divided is easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12 states, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Friends, in a marriage the “three cords” should be God Almighty, the husband, and the wife. A marriage founded upon God as the center of it cannot easily be broken. Husbands, be willing to lead by example. Love your wife as Christ loves the Church. Admittedly, I am still very much working on this.
We prayed for our son and read the Bible together before bed, long before he even understood what was going on. Once his brother came along 15 months later, we continued in reading the Bible, praying together, and singing a blessing over them every night. Even though our sons are in college now, we continue this same routine to this very day. Have we missed some evenings? Oh, sure we have, but if we are all home, we have tried to make this our nightly routine, and it is now a tradition in our home. Proverbs 22:6 is our guide in this and we have decided to trust in God and His good and right ways: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
Admittedly, our children are still growing up, so we are still in the trusting stage of this proverb and in many of God’s promises. Do we think our children will follow God and His good and right ways? Yes, not just because we trust God, but because we trust our children, too.
A funny thing happened when our sons moved out. My wife and I realized that they have to make their own way now. Boy, was this hard to do! Giving up control and fully trusting God Almighty and allowing your children the complete freedom to make their own decisions for right or wrong can be hard, but it is the way it is eventually supposed to be. So, as a parent you have a choice to make. You can show the children God has given to you the ways of God Almighty, or not. You are the example that your children will see virtually every day while they are growing up. Be thankful and appreciate the opportunity that God has given to you and your spouse to raise these children. Parents, take this responsibility seriously; your children will eventually leave your home and make their own lives. This is something that is very good.
So, I will leave you with this. It is not about you and your dreams; it is about following God and His plan for your life and your family’s descendants. Are you willing to sacrifice your dreams and desires for people you haven’t met yet? Your grandchildren and great grandchildren are depending on you to make Godly choices now so that they can be even that much farther down life’s spiritual road than you ever were. Please prayerfully consider giving them that wonderful selfless gift.
Blogger note: For those of you that don’t have children or can’t have children, please consider your life and be a Godly example to those God puts into your path.
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