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Sustained!
“Train Up A Child”—A Lot Easier Than It Sounds
By Leann Guzman
January 30, 2006
“Awww, Mom, Do We Have To?”
They say confession is good for the soul, so here's a confession from my youth:
I hated family prayer time when I was growing up. It was such a
miserable time. Back then, and to some extent even to this day, I have a thing
about praying out loud. I also had/have the problem of getting very distracted
in my prayer when others are praying out loud because I do this whole "I
shouldn't be listening to them but they're praying so loud I can't help it"
thing. (These problems are very inconvenient for an Apostolic. Really, I'm
starting to think I should re-title this column Problems Apostolics Shouldn't
Have, But I Seem to Have Them Anyway.)
So, combine my dislike of praying out loud
with the distraction of Dad praying so loud that I couldn't help but listen to
him and not concentrate on what I wanted to pray, well, it just wasn't something
I enjoyed. And yet, somehow, defying the odds, my parents managed to instill a
love of prayer in my heart and helped me develop my own relationship with God.
I write this as if it were an embarrassing
thing and I should have just loved family devotions and asked my parents to have
them more often. But I’m willing to bet that most everyone whose parents had
family devotions and/or prayer time felt the same way I did. And, I’m also
willing to bet that as you got older, much like I do, you now appreciate those
times much more in retrospect than you did at the time.
We’re Losing Our Children
When I wrote a couple of columns last year on public school versus private
school, many of you responded, and no matter which side of the debate you came
down on, you all agreed that it is the parents' responsibility to teach their
children in the home about spiritual matters. But the questions for Apostolic
parents are:
· Are
we doing this?
· Are
we doing it properly?
· Are
we doing it enough?
· Are
we fulfilling our responsibility to our children to teach them in the home about
our beliefs?
According to surveys by the Barna Group, the
family devotion is virtually non-existent in Christian homes. As a result,
children are growing up to be ill equipped to face the challenges to their faith
that are inevitable when they enter college and/or the workforce. One estimate
shows that Christianity is losing 80 percent of our children by the time they
reach college age.
This attrition rate is not our churches’
fault, nor the Sunday school program’s fault, nor the youth pastor’s fault.
This falling away of our children is the fault of the parents. Certainly God
placed within each person the ability to make his or her own decision about
whether to follow Him, which is everyone’s ability to exercise his or her own
free will. Ultimately parents can’t force their child to serve the Lord. But
parents have to train their children in His ways, and teach them to have an
answer for every man when the atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Muslims, etc.,
come knocking with their very different views of life and spirituality.
Spiritual Training
Family devotions are important and are a vital element to a spiritually sound
home. If you don’t currently have some sort of family time to discuss the Lord,
the Bible, and spiritual things, I encourage you to start setting aside time to
do this.
Don’t say you don’t have time because we all
make time for the things that are important to us. Don’t say you don’t know
enough about the Bible because there are a multitude of good, sound, biblically
correct resources out there to help you. Don’t say your children are too young
because the younger they are when you start, the easier it will be to get them
used to having family devotions. Don’t say your children are too old because
the older they are, the bigger and harder and more important their questions and
challenges become.
Of course, devotions can’t be all you do to
teach your children, just as going to church can’t be all an Apostolic does to
serve the Lord. One major mistake that I’ve seen my friends’ parents make is to
simply “walk the walk and talk the talk” in front of their children. It seemed
that they thought if they lived right then their children would follow in their
footsteps. The major thing that seemed lacking was training their children in
the practical, actual steps to take to foster the child’s own relationship with
the Lord.
You must look for the teachable moments when
your child is receptive to hear, when you feel the Spirit urge you, and when you
have an opportunity to train your child in how to have his own relationship with
God.
What We Do
Our daughter is two years old, so right now we can only talk to her on a very
elementary level about God. We currently do four things consistently outside of
church attendance. First, we pray with her every night before bed. Second, she
and I pray on our way to her nursery school for everyone in our family to have a
good day. During these two prayer times, we’re always sure to thank the Lord
for specific blessings, like her toys, her “big girl bed” she just moved to, and
her clothes. She caught on to this very quickly and can always think of
something I forgot to thank the Lord for.
Third, we read a small portion from her
little New Testament Bible that she takes to Sunday school. She may not
understand any of it right now, but the act of reading the Bible is very
important and is teaching her about the importance of God’s Word. And finally,
we always pray for her boo-boos. Again, she caught on to this as well and one
day before she had even turned two years old, I mentioned my stomach was hurting
and she surprised me by closing her eyes, touching my stomach and saying,
“Jesus, Mamma’s tummy hurting, Jesus, Amen.” (The amazing thing was my stomach
stopped hurting immediately.)
What Do You Do?
Does your family have devotion and/or prayer time? Do you use teachable moments
with your kids? Do you have a good story of how your kids showed you they were
“getting it” spiritually? When you were growing up, did your family do
something special to train you spiritually?
Write me to share your stories and what
works for you and your family. I’d love to hear from you.
ninetyandnine.com
© 2006, Leann
Guzman
-------
Leann Guzman is
ninetyandnine.com’s “Family / Work Issues” columnist. If you have
suggestions on topics to explore, email her at
Family@ninetyandnine.com.
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