Heart Healthy Words

When I was growing up, my favorite playground was my own backyard.  In the summer, it was a baseball diamond.  In the fall, it was a football field.  In the spring a bicycle path around the house became our "pony express" route.  My cousins and I played so long and hard in our adjoining backyards that there was no grass in sight.  Our parents collective attitude was, "We can always grow grass, but we can't always grow little boys."  It was a wonderful, safe environment called home. 

Far too often today, children and parents are looking for somewhere else to go.  We go to school for learning, parks for playing, restaurants for eating, movies for entertainment, and church for religious teaching.  It seems the only thing many kids get at home these days is a place to sleep. 

What children need more than anything during those formative years are unconditional love, training for real life, consistent accountability and discipline, and nurture toward faith in Christ.  In Psalm 127:3-5, the psalmist reminds parents that the chief purpose of a home is to accept children as a gift from God and fulfill that most important role as "life builder."  How can parents or a single parent or a custodial grandparent or a stepparent best fulfill that role?  Godly love is the answer.  Sometimes, love can be unwise and spoil children.  Sometimes, it can be selfish and misuse or even abuse children.  Sometimes, it can be too protective in trying to shield children from the realities of life.  Sometimes, it can be too permissive by placing too much responsibility on children at too young an age.  The Bible simply encourages fathers and mothers to love their children with a godly love.  That kind of love will do four things for a child.

First, it will always affirm the child's value.  Every child needs to know within the family unit that he or she has intrinsic value NOT because it has been earned, but because that child is a person made in God's image and a part of the family.  Every child has the right to feel valued and loved

Second, this godly love will always affirms the child's identity.  Girls should not be expected to live out a mother's dreams nor should boys be expected to live out a father's fantasies.  No child is a carbon copy of another.   A godly love will help children discover how God has wired their personalities, preferences, natural abilities, and spiritual gifts together to make them special, unique, and equipped to serve Him. 

 Third, this godly love always loves without condition.  Children should be allowed to make mistakes and even fail without fear of parental rejection.  I remember reading the testimony of a young woman who had been heavily involved in drugs and crime.  After exhausting every possible means of intervention without success, he mother finally said, "I want you to know that there is absolutely NOTHING you can do that will ever make me stop loving you."  That statement maintained an open door for dialogue that ultimately changed the daughter's life.  Her testimony was that her mother's model of God's unconditional love saved her life.

Finally, this godly love shows children how to live a purposeful, Christ-honoring life.  That's what Jesus did for us.  Proverbs 22:6 reminds parents of the importance of training children properly.  David Elkind, child psychologist and author of The Hurried Child  writes that teens and children have lost many of their "rites of passage' over the last two generations.  Parents have gone to extremes in permissiveness and pushiness.  We want our children to achieve, accomplish, and accumulate, so we push them through childhood and adolescence into adulthood as quickly as we can.  We use tools like make-up, clothing, cars, jobs, and responsibilities that used to be reserved for adulthood.  Sometimes we even give implicit approval to formerly adult activities like sex, alcohol us, tobacco use, drug use, and excessive unsupervised freedom at a time when they are too emotionally immature to handle them.  In order to navigate the dangerous waters of adolescence, kids need the oars of consistent, loving discipline and modeled, Christ-honoring lifestyles. 

Children are a gift from God.  That truth doesn't change when they're 12 or 22 or 40.  Commit yourself as a parent to provide them with unconditional love, daily affirmation, consistent loving discipline, and a godly example.  There will be plenty of time for all the things you think you need to do right now.  But today is always the best chance to make a positive impact on the lives of your kids.  Don't let even one precious moment slip away.  Your kids and grandkids are counting on you. 

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