Proactive Parenting...

Something AMAZING happened today. It was really an ordinary amazing. You know the kind you just might miss if you aren't paying attention. I've been praying for God to give me WISDOM in raising my children. You know "training a child in the way they should go". I really need to do this post in parts. This will be one small part. ANYWAY, like I said praying for wisdom, because WELL, I'm finding out I can't rely on my own understanding. My way just ain't working. The wonderful thing is that God makes us a promise in James that if we ask for wisdom HE will lavish it on us. WOOHOO. I could use a wisdom flood.

Ok... Part 1. "train up a child".... Well, I have been pretty reactive about this command. You know what I mean. Only dealing with a discipline problem when it arises... which come to find out IS NOT the best way to do it. We are supposed to be PROACTIVE. Hence the TRAINING. Teaching what we know, when we get up, sit down, walk by the way and lay down. You know all this. We are supposed to be passing down the precepts and commands all the time. Which brings up a very good point... you have to be in the Word to pass down the Word.

OK... back to the amazing thing. My niece and nephew spent the night last night. My 7 yr old daughter and my 8 yr old niece are constantly fighting and I really have tried everything to help the situation with some success, but they still fight. So, we are sitting at the table eating breakfast and about to do devotional. I opened up to Proverbs 20 and saw verse 3. I thought wow that will be a good verse for today. It says "It is to a man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel." After I had the girls read the verse we began to talk about what this means. Just then my daughter gets very serious and says "Wow, we must be fools." I said, "well, why do you say that?". To which she replied "because we fuss and fight all the time." That was AMAZING to me. God's word had spoken to her heart and shown her something about herself and she didn't want to be a fool. I LOVE THAT!!!

The Bible says that the word of God is sharper than any 2 edged sword able to penetrate our hearts and change us from within. We NEED God's word. Our children NEED God's word. The Bible says that the Word of God is ALIVE and ACTIVE. It says that it NEVER returns VOID. We don't need more discipline and lectures. We NEED more of the WORD!!!

So, Part 1 is I need to rely on the Word of God to give me Wisdom so that I can pass it on to my children and be proactive about revealing sin to them so that they will seek a heart change. God's Word is soooooo much better at this than I am. Being imperfect they see my sin. God is perfect and so when they hear something from the Word of God they respect it.

I praise God for his patience and kindness. In Psalms David say the gentleness of God had made him great. Isn't that so true. God is so good to us that we want to live for him. We have to be so good to our children that they want to live for HIM!!!