By Shelly Burke, Author, Home is Where the Mom Is; A Christian Mom's Guide
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As a Christian parent, your greatest task is to bring your
children up believing in God and teaching them about Him, His Word and how they
can live God-pleasing lives.
How can we as parents make sure that our children know the
Lord? How can we instill in them the desire for faith and the desire to live a
God-pleasing life?
In Deuteronomy 6 Moses says these words to the Israelites,
shortly after receiving the Ten Commandments. “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write
them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:6-9)
In other words, we infuse these beliefs in our children by
making them a central, integral part of our lives and theirs. I’ve edited the
above verses to reflect the reality of life in 2012: “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts—in
the midst of busy schedules, make time for ME first. Your most important job as
a parent is not to make sure your kids are in the most activities, or are the
“best” at anything they are involved in. Your job is to impress My commandments
on your children so that they will follow them all the days of their lives.
Talk about Me when you
are driving your kids to school or activities. Sing Christian songs or memorize
Bible verses when you’re in the car. Say prayers with them before they go to
bed, and talk about the day’s events. When did they feel My presence? When they
bring up a difficult situation, listen…and ask them what I would do. When they
wake up, remind them that I will be with them throughout the day and ask them
how they will show My love to their friends.
Send them text
messages on the cell phone that seems to be tied to their hands. Text them
Bible verses of encouragement. Tell them you’ve prayed for them before a test. Load
Christian music on the iPod or MP3 player that seems to be attached to their
head.
Write Bible verses on
notecards and tape them to the mirror in the bathroom, to their bedroom door,
the refrigerator, the dashboard of their car.
No matter the age of your children, take every chance to
fill them with God’s Word and His love and instructions. As they get older they
will be more and more influenced by others. Cody will enter his junior year and
Morgan her freshman year of college in the fall. Tim and I won’t have the
day-to-day contact with them that we do now. They’ll be exposed to many
different people with different beliefs and opinions, probably including some
that will contradict their Christian upbringing.
I thank God that both of our children were brought up in the
church, and I pray every day that they will remember their Christian background
and that God will put Christian friends in their paths.
Also from Deuteronomy: “Walk
in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live
and prosper and prolong you days…” (Deut. 5:33)
Dear Lord, please help
me to remember that teaching our children about You is the most important thing
we can do as parents. Please help us to put that task above all the other
things that seem so urgent and important. Please remind us that there are many,
many teachable moments every single day; help us to take advantage of all of those moments, so that our children
will grow up knowing You and Your will and Your Love. Amen.
I’m
also the editor of a Christian newspaper, the Nebraska Family Times.
Read my blog
entry today, titled “Do Not Lose Heart.”
