Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and 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. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
A Heavenly Father’s Love
As Christian parents today, we have giant shoes to fill. Unfortunately, with the social media platforms and technology at their fingertips, all kinds of false information can easily and quickly find its way into our kid’s heads. Sometimes kids will listen to anyone else but their parents, which is scary. We need to be intentional to make sure that they get the right information and do our best to fend off the false teaching this world offers.
To a certain extent we can only do so much, and then we have to lay it at Jesus’ feet. We can teach them and lead them and be the example of godly parents, but eventually they will begin to make their own choices and the older they get, the less control we have over what they choose. That is the laying at Jesus’ feet part.
As long as we have influence over their lives we need to exhibit the character of parents who put God first in everything, and we need to communicate to our children why we do that and how important it is to us. They need to watch us as we navigate problems and frustrations and deal with the challenges that life brings as a mom and dad (or grandparents) who are grounded in unwavering faith. Realizing that problems are a part of life for everyone, Christian or not, they need to see us talk it and walk it. They need to see action, not just hear words. This builds character in our own lives as well as influencing theirs and shows our kids that we draw our strength from God in the face of adversity.
A Heavenly Father
When you hear the words Heavenly Father, what kind of emotions are stirred within you? Do you feel warm and cozy inside or does it evoke feelings of anxiety, fear, or loneliness? Some of you have not known the loving acceptance of an earthly father. You may not associate anything good with the title of father and it is hard to imagine God as someone who cares about you and wants to take care of you as long as His name is Heavenly Father. Your desire is to be a different father to your own children – one that embodies the Heavenly Father and shows your children that He is a good Father.
Many children have had the privilege of having a father who loves, cherishes, supports, and is committed to them. A caring father who nourishes an intimate and loving relationship makes a profound effect on a child's life. God is more than willing to help make up for absent fathers. As a Christian we have a unique relationship with the Creator of the universe who is our heavenly father as well and we need to make sure our children understand that concept of God.
Unconditional Love
For those of us with performance-oriented fathers we may tend to transfer those characteristics to God. The Bible does talk about being disciplined and rewarded according to our actions. That’s not the problem, the problem comes in when our worth and our value is attached to what we do. Beliefs such as God only loves you when you’re performing well, you constantly have to perform to be loved by him, His love is conditional, or that when you’re having problems in your life due to sin, sickness, family problems, etc. that God isn’t present and loving you can cause our faith to waiver. These mindsets may cause you to have difficulty in accepting grace. It might be a concept you know in your head but not in your heart. If this is something you struggle with, you need to work it out in your heart so you can teach your child about the unconditional, everlasting love God has for them as His child. They need to feel unconditionally loved and to know that there is nothing they could ever do that would be enough to earn it, nor could they ever do anything to lose it.
Satan, in contrast to God who is our Heavenly Father, is the Father of Lies. He does not want us to believe in the unconditional love of a Heavenly Father, and he does not want our children to either. We can teach them about a Heavenly Father who loves us enough to die for us. One loves us unconditionally and He will be right by our side always and in everything. And if you have a great big hole in your heart that your earthly daddy was supposed to fill but did not, remember that God is not a reflection of that father. He is the perfection of that father. He is everything we could ever want or hope for in a father and more. This is comforting as humans. No matter how we feel that we mess up with our kids, He never does. He always has them nestled in His arms protecting them and loving them.
