Saturday, May 17, 2008 "Children,our responsibility"

Saturday, May 17, 2008

"Children,our responsibility"

First From Julie's Keyboard:

The Things We Hold Dear....

Recently I was blessed to be in attendance with my homeschooled son at one of the local area elementary schools on "Awards Day." (I have other family members there.) As we watched these little ones coming forward for their certificates of accomplishment, well, you know me, I was having my private moments of thinking on how this should be improved.

While those over achievers beamed with the joy of accomplishment, there were many who had only a small mention when they received their time in the spotlight. In my opinion (and I realize it's only that), what a jarring jolt this is to a child's ego to think that they're just not smart, never will be smart and going to have to settle for a life that will not permit the dreams they may have inside them.

Please don't misunderstand. I know what it is to work and work hard to be that over achiever. Some can just seem to settle for no less than the very top in their academic accomplishments. I've been there. These things are so important and maybe even in ways that are unknown to me at this time. However, my thinking this week has led me into wondering how well we as parents spend the energy to insure that are children are pursuing their spiritual education.

With what tenacity do we go after them to be certain they've understood what they heard in Sun. School or Church? Or, even yet, what about "Family Devotion?" (Most would say, "What is this and who has time for it anyway?") Until a few years ago, I would be holding up a guilty hand on this and I constantly have to keep myself in check even now. Where's our focus? What do we hold dear?

We want that child to be "college material." We want him/her to have bright opportunites and make the choice in the field of their liking some day. We want to prepare them for this challenging place in which we live. We may be thinking right now, "How can anyone be sure they are doing this with their children?"

Don't we have to do the best we know how and hope for the best? Haven't we all seen folks with multiple degrees behind their names who had children that seriously broke their heart with some wayward pattern of living when they reached adulthood?

Sure, I have more questions than answers. But, I serve the One Who has all of the answers for whatever we need. He gave us His Word on this and anything else we can encounter. We have to trust Him and live as though we trust Him.

If we really did this, we would have to see things differently. Are we so far away from the correct way of doing things that we are without hope to get back? Surely not. He's waiting for us folks.

What do we hold dear today? Some of us are getting a little older as we've began to notice now. (Imagine that!) Is it too late to help our grown children in spite of mistakes we may have made with them? Do our own culture preferences say, "Hey, you can't swim against the current like this. You're on you own."?

We're really supposed to care very little what culture predicts. As God's children, we have a manner of living that should far surpass any other. The opportunity is there for us. Will we see what He has to say about it? Or, just float along in the stream about us?

Thanks be to God, that He takes care of our pasts. What are we willing to give Him in light of the here and now, as well as the future? May you ponder these verses this week to go with our thoughts for ...."The Things We Hold Dear."

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Psalm 128:1-6 "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel."

Isaiah 53 & 54 ......"And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.".... (verse 13)

Have a blessed week!
Julie

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"Children, our responsibility"

I find myself challenged this week by Julie’s keyboard, each week she writes from her heart and it is always an encouragement to me in some way. Sometimes more than others it presents a challenge, this week it spoke to my heart with an unexpected discipline.

She unintentionally reminded me of my responsibilities of being a father and teaching my children the important things of life. As I read her thoughts, some of the statements I have made in the past came before me. I suppose it’s was Gods way of correcting me.

You see, this little one we have here at home is so so precious to me. I want to best in life for him and to give him all the advantage on life I possibly can. I am so thankful to God and to Julie that she has dedicated her self to home school him and help make this possible.

But the correction came in the order of our older children who have already left the nest and went out to make a life of their own. As most young couples do starting out with a family they make mistakes and sometimes offer up disappointments to their parents. It has been in some of those times I have been guilty of making statements like, "Well, we did our best, their own there now." or " There’s nothing we can do now, they will just have to find their own way and make their own choices."

While I believe this is still true, for they will have to do all these things, we can’t make their decisions for them. Julie’s words made me realize my responsibility as a father will never end. While I must let them make their decisions, the rest of my life will be spent giving guidance and encouragement to do the right thing, to make the right choices.

Just because they seem to not hear or heed my words, my responsibility remains just the same. When something like this touches my heart I have trained my ear to wonder what the Founders of our nation might have to say. I suppose that is a result of my studies.

I find them inspirational in all their thoughts. I know they were not perfect men and they all struggled with the frailties of man. But if you study our history it is almost as if God destined certain men for a certain time as this. Their sacrifices and selfless acts, their dedication to perform what the Word of God spoke into their lives and to see that influence impact their society sparks an attention in my eye.

Having said that, I find in their personal writings a concern for their children, their family members and the youth in general. A concern or I should say a desire to impart the truth that governed their own lives and had proved to be prosperous over the years.

It is a challenge to me to do the same, and to do it with the same veracity to which they applied to their own lives. It is with their words below I let them speak to us and encourage us.

May God bless each of you,
David

In a letter to his son, President John Quincy Adams would write:

But the first words of the Bible are, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The blessed and sublime idea of God as the creator of the universe – the Source of all human happiness for which all the sages and philosophers of Greece and Rome groped in darkness and never found – is recalled in the first verse of the book of Genesis.

I call it the source of all human virtue and happiness because when we have attained the conception of a Being Who by the mere act of His will created the world, it would follow as an irresistible consequence (even if we were not told that the same Being must also be the governor of his own creation) that man, with all other things, was also created by Him, and must hold his felicity and virtue on the condition of obedience to His will. - - - - John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), Letter II, pp. 27-28.

In a letter to his nephew President Thomas Jefferson would write:

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises, being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death. - - - - Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903), Vol. 5, pp. 82-83, in a letter to his nephew Peter Carr on August 19, 1785.)

In giving advice to the young in general Noah Webster writes:

The most perfect maxims and examples for regulating your social conduct and domestic economy, as well as the best rules of morality and religion, are to be found in the Bible. . . . The moral principles and precepts found in the scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.

These principles and precepts have truth, immutable truth, for their foundation. . . . All the evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. . . . For instruction then in social, religious and civil duties resort to the scriptures for the best precepts. - - - - Noah Webster, History of the United States, "Advice to the Young" (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), pp. 338-340, par. 51, 53, 56.)