Most of us are familiar with people who have said that they raised their children in church and the way they should go, but the children decided at some point that that is not what they wanted to do. The parent then explains to us that it's the child's choice and we cannot force it. This explanation leaves us a little frightened and concerned that our children might do the same thing and it is not a satisfactory option for most of us. Yet, who wants to be accused of forcing and coercing their children to follow God?
The title of this article is taken from scripture and has the words of Joshua. Apparently Joshua decided his whole household would serve the Lord. We don't have any record that he asked them what they wanted to do. We also have two examples in Acts 16 of people who believed along with their household. The jailer who was responsible for Paul and Silas believed with great joy as well as his household. I believe his joy in coming to know Christ was a factor in pulling his family in. Then there is Lydia who was baptized with her household. Could it be her example of service and her love for Jesus and His followers compelled her family to believe as well? I don't think any of us could disagree with the idea that neither this jailer nor Lydia went home with a controlling, insensitive attitude and simply insisted that this is what the whole family was going to do! It only seems reasonable knowing the scriptures and knowing God that the they would have come home excited and so grateful for the Lord's intervention and so in awe of God's power that their families were pulled in along with them! Song of Solomon says in chapter 1 verse 4, "Draw me away! We will run after you."
Isn't that what we all want? Our hearts desire is that our children will so see God in us in and in other belivers around them that they will be drawn in. Our love for the Lord and our love for scripture are so important. We also need a consistency and obedience to that word of God with a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. These are the elements that lay the groundwork for a household that yearns after God.
Once we have this groundwork in place, we can recognize the role we have as parents in establishing spiritual habits that are life changing for our children. Children are made impressionable so that we can impress God on their hearts. In Genesis 18:19, the Lord says that he chose Abraham "that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way the Lord by doing righteousness and justice".
So first of all, we make sure our hearts are right with the Lord and our attitudes are clear with people, then we are prepared to instill these spiritual habits in our children. If we skip the first step, then we will drive them away rather than gather them in with us.
That said, there is danger in letting our children choose which way they want to go without putting effort into making sure that the gospel is as appealing as it should be to our family. Why is it dangerous to let the children just choose without the training in the way they should go? It's because the flesh will more often than not choose the way of selfish indulgence. Therefore, we must endeavor to instill habits that are engulfing spiritual disciplines. Let's get started with some ideas.
Self denial: this discipline is essential to all the others I believe. We instill self denial by training them in first time cheerful obedience. We build upon that with instruction in doing God's will in other areas of personal discipline and service to others. Matthew 16:24
Devotions: after hearing most of my friends in Christian circles saying that they had a hard time disciplining themselves to have daily devotions, I decided our children would learn that habit early. Starting as toddlers, we would set our child down in the morning with a Bible story picture book and instruct them to look through it. This exercise may only take a minute or two but it became a routine. This routine grew into longer sessions as they learned to read and we gave them appropriate lengths of scripture to read and helped them create a prayer and praise list. Mark 1:35, Psalm 119:48
Regular Church attendance when the doors of the church were open: extracurricular activities did not take us away from church. We expressed our desire to be with God's people and we expressed our appreciation for what we learned and how we were blessed. Hebrews 10:25
Loving the saints and prayer warriors: we would talk about the saints and prayer warriors in our church in a positive way. They were our heroes. They were who we wanted to emulate. It came to be at birthdays that our children would invite these adults to their parties before even their peers!
Loving the carnal: we did not deny the fact that there were carnal Christians amongst us. When our children would struggle with this, we would have acknowledgment that what the carnal Christian was doing was wrong, We also would have discussion about how we all are in the process of growing and we need to give each other grace. We would discuss some of the positive things in these person's lives. We also would talk about prayer for these individuals. There would be instruction on how to respond when carnal things were said or done. They also would see us reach out to these carnal ones and not avoid them. 1 Peter 2:17
Participation in church: We explained to our children what a blessing it is to the older ones and what a challenge it is to their peers when children and young people obey God in church. Explain that we are a Christian family and you want to help lift the arms of the pastor and not make him drag us along. At this point, you can tell them that you would like them to say a quick praise the Lord during testimony time the next Sunday. Also that you would like for them to start saying a short prayer in prayer meeting. This is especially important for those who are more shy and introverted. Once they do it, there is much affirmation and encouragement that they are participating in the body of Christ and being obedient to the Lord. Ephesians 4:16, 1 Timothy 4:12
Being Kingdom focused: we allowed our children to see us make decisions that were Kingdom focused. We exposed them to our thought processes about why we did or did not do any particular extracurricular activity. If we were deciding about where to go on vacation, did we have godly direction or godly purpose? And on our way there, we would memorize hymns together and listen to godly stories together. If they learned a musical instrument, it was for the purpose of using for God's glory in worship. If we were helping them develop another gift academically or a life skill, it would be worded in the context of this is how you can use this for God someday. They saw us seeking the Lord and his guidance about where we were to live, how we were to school them as well as other areas like what we watched, what we wore,spent money on or how we spent our spare time. Matthew 6:33
Despise a critical spirit: I believe disregarding this instruction has killed many young people spiritually. When they hear us criticizing the pastor, other people in church or other groups who believe differently than we do, we are creating a negative environment and not one of love. Don't get me wrong. We definitely told our children why we did the things we did and why we didn't do them as some others do them. We based it on scripture and scriptural thinking the best we knew, but we always encouraged them not to be critical of others who felt differently. We also encouraged them to stand firm in scriptural thinking no matter how others responded. James 4:11
Seek the Holy Spirit's guidance: our children saw us praying about decisions and endeavoring to make it a high priority to do what God wanted rather than what we wanted or rather than what others expected of us. We also asked them if they were making decisions to spend some time and pray about it. If they felt the Lord leading for something, we would respect it if it fell within scriptural boundaries. Romans 8:14
Share Christ: we can exemplify having a witness when we are out and about or when we are in discussions with neighbors or friends. We can also take our children out to pass out tracts and do door to door witnessing. We can start a Bible club with the needy in the area. We can all work together to raise money for a short-term mission trip. This is an extension of being Kingdom focused. Mark 16:15
All of these things take a lot of time and energy don't they? But I believe that, even though this is not an exhaustive list, it is enough that our children will start understanding that it takes all of our mind, our heart, and our strength to follow God…and as they see our joy in doing it, they will know it is well worth the effort!
Be careful about saying things like, "this is my house and this is what we're going to do and when you're 18 you can do something different" or "this is the way our church believes so that's why we're going to do it and you can go to a different church when you're older if you want to". When we say such things, we are making our beliefs sound optional and disposable if disciplines are undesirable to us. We want to focus on expanding on the good in what we choose to do and on the scriptural basis for it. We also want to have an expectation that they will reap the most out of life if they maintain what they've been taught and even build on it as they get older.
Each family will be led by the Lord fitting to the needs of the family. Each child will process things differently and come to the Lord at a different time in their life. We all need to be in tune with the Spirit and sensitive to our relationship with our children and our spouse. I am not trying to set fast and bound rules for families. I am just sharing how the Lord led us and what bore fruit in our case. I believe we can do much to bring our whole household along to serve the Lord. There is no reason to be overbearing, controlling and carnal in raising our children. This is destructive. However, we will never regret spending our lives living for the Lord with joy and training our children to do likewise.
