God has really been speaking to my heart over the last few months in regards to my family. He has been redirecting me as a mother, and placed a word on my heart. This one word has been making me stop and think as I go through my days with my children. It is requiring me to be more diligent in how I think, speak to, react towards, and discipline my children.
What one word could possibly do all of this you wonder?
Disciple.
Typically when we think of this word, we picture fisherman on the water with Jesus calling out to them to come and follow Him.
Yet, there is so much more to it than that.
What does disciple actually mean?
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines it as this:
“To teach; to train; to bring up.”
What a wonderful way to describe that which we all desire to do with our children.
Teaching
Our first task is to teach our children. Teaching can be done in so many ways. We often limit ourselves to textbooks, classrooms, penmanship, etc. Our entire lives including each and every day provide countless ways to teach our children all God and we desire them to learn.
What I am passionate about teaching my children….
I desire to teach my children the ways of the Lord first and foremost. I want to teach my children to be diligent in all they put their hands to. I long to teach my children to have a good attitude no matter the task at hand.
Teaching is not always enough. When we teach our children a new task or problem, the process does not always stick the first, second or even the third time. We must go beyond teaching.
Training
The next step is training our children. We must put them to work on the new task or problems over and over again. Our imaginations might even need to be put to work, to find new and different ways to train them.
How I strive to train my children….
Training them in God’s word is most important to me for my children. So, both of my kiddos are involved in an Awana program which requires weekly Bible verse memorization. Their penmanship lessons are Bible verses. We have Bible sword drills each morning before we begin our days.
Bringing Up
This step happens whether we teach, train, like it or not. Our children will grow up, much quicker than we realize. It is how we bring them up that matters.
We must remember to evaluate what we focus on in their lives. Are the priorities sports, dance, schooling, etc?
The things that are important to us, will become important to our children. They learn not just from what we say, but even more from what we do.
Throughout this series we will cover different areas that we have opportunities to disciple our children in faith, life and family matters.
I pray that as we prepare to tackle these topics that God would strengthen us for the difficulties we’ll likely face and that we would stand strong in the midst of them all.
