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Way # 21 We do what we know is right, regardless of what others do or say.
Memory Verse:
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,Nor stand in the path of sinners,Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord,And in His law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:1-2
Sometimes it is a bit humbling to have older kids. The ways they tease or roll their eyes at you can sometimes feel a little personal. Yet, as I look at all of my sweet ones, I know they are grateful for having been given foundations of ways to think, to live, and to develop their own sense of integrity. It was important to us to give them a sense of their own potential influence, self-government, and personal virtue in a very dark world. Godly influence is not won by force or authoritarianism; that sort of influence is usually lost. But it is won long-term in the way Christ won it in the lives of His disciples—by giving His life to them.
Sometimes we don't think our children are listening to our repeated in instruction. Yet, I believe training up a child “in the way he should go" is a good description of shaping brain pathways of truth and morality in the minds and even the souls of our children as they grow and mature.
One of the mantras my children heard over and over again was, "Wrong is always wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is always right, even if no one is doing it."
Understanding that the world is a place of compromise, yet we were called to be holy, set apart--light in the darkness, salt in a tasteless world—prepared my children to go into very challenging arenas, armed with an understanding of what the battle would become and how they would be tested.
The Ten Commandments are a great place to start--no adultery, no idols, set yourselves apart to remember God and honor Him, as well as honoring parents. Our family believes we have great freedom, yet we also have strong standards of holiness and morality because we focus on seeking to please the heart of God. The only way you can create freedom to live righteously and give wisdom in knowing how to behave in life is to teach about Jesus and His instruction every day. Only when we have pondered His words can we understand His heart towards life.
Psalm 1 is a passage I used over and over again to train my children to walk not in the counsel of their friends or the world, but to delight in the rightness of God's words in order to have a sensitive conscience to what He wanted them to do. We acted out and memorized this Psalm through verse four, and it became a picture of what a righteous person looked like in a culture that was cynical, criticizing, and compromising: the blessed man walks in the counsel of the Lord.
My children had to say "no" to certain age-inappropriate movies when we were not around. They had to learn to be the ones who would not participate in certain activities in various groups. They learned, by practicing, not to engage in looking at immoral images on the computer. We talked about it all—media, peer pressure, and various types of foolishness. We read Proverbs together many times to find wise ways of living.
Learning to be righteous is a heart issue, not a rules-memorized issue. We cannot force righteousness on our children by legalism and harshness. This only makes them want to hide from us. But instead, we nurture and cultivate a love for goodness by cultivating it in our home each day.
How have you taught your children the concept of being holy--set aside for God's purposes and glory?