T- Teach Them

 

5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.   Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Mommas (and Daddies, if any of you are reading this!)….I’m going to tell you something that I believe fully, and I hope you read it with all the love I have for you in my heart.

It’s up to YOU.

Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, school teachers, family leaders, friends…they’re all going to teach your kids something.  Some will be beneficial, some not.  Some of them will teach your child about God, life skills, and how to love others with their words and their actions.

It truly does take a village (or at least it should) to raise a child.  So much can be learned by children by interacting with others outside of the family.

But YOU are the most important teachers your child will ever have.

We hear so many studies and reports these days about how kids friends, social media, the internet affect our kids.  And it’s true.

If we let it.

Of course, despite our best efforts, children do have their own hearts and choices….and not all children will grown into the adult you hoped and prayed they will be.  Free will sounds great to us as adults…but I bet you wish sometimes your kids didn’t have it.

I wish I could protect my kids from every hurt they will ever face.  I’m sure you do too.  But even if I were possible, what a disservice that would be to them.

Kids who don’t have experience and learn to deal with hearing the word ‘no’, feeling sad, disappointed, let down, left out or lose, will grow up to be entitled, incapable, unprepared adults.

And I don’t know about you…but that’ not what I’m wanting to invest my time, by efforts, my tears, my prayers into.

A respectful, responsible, obedient to God, kind, loving, God fearing, God loving, God serving man….that’s my hope, my prayer, my investment.

And it doesn’t happen by accident.

Parents…teach your kids…because if you don’t the ‘world’ will.

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