You know, I want to speak to the parents right now, and the grandparents, even. You know, there’s a verse that says, “Raise a child up as they should go, and they will not depart from their ways.” You know, we are called to not only be parents in provision and be parents in protecting and raising them up, but we’re supposed to be equipping them and training them how to actually live a life fulfilled in Christ. That as we live lives that are fulfilled in Christ, as we set an example for them on a day-to-day basis, we teach them how to interact with each other. We teach them how to interact with other people. We teach them how to navigate their own emotions and how to navigate their relationships.
We don’t do it in a fear-based way that we can’t offend them, we can’t allow them, and we don’t give them more than they’re willing, or deserving to have. Empowering a child too early is actually creating a cycle that creates entitlement and a disrespect for authority. Discipline is not a bad thing. It comes in two forms. It’s a result of consequence, but it’s also the structure in which we discipline, which we train up, which we allow them to grow in. See, children are looking for boundaries. They desire it. They want them. They may fight the idea of them, but they truly want boundaries. They want restrictions, they want guidance. They want a firm and loving hand in their lives. But in that, they need to learn who God is to them, who the Father is to them. And as parents, we need to raise our children up, showing them that commitment to God, discipline in their lifestyle, making right choices, understanding consequences for bad choices. For learning how to love unselfishly, for learning how to be humble, for learning how to be giving and generous, learning how to navigate joy and navigate pain. Being that person in their life for those people in their lives that teach them what it is to thrive as a child of God, to thrive as a growing adult.
How do they leave our homes? Do they leave our homes equipped and ready to live life as an adult, fully equipped? Or are they still dependent on childish things? See, we’re called to be childlike, not childish. And as parents, we have the ability to teach the generation how to live, and instill in them the fundamentals that they can teach the next generation and the next generation.
So Father, I just want to bless every parent, every grandparent, every person in authority over a child right now. I want to bless them to lead in a way that raises them up to see their identity, that they find out who they are in Christ through how they’ve been raised, how their parents set an example, how people of authority have allowed them to grow and cultivate their identity in their watch. And I just bless them in that right now, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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