PARTNERING WITH GOD IN THE TRAINING OF OUR CHILDREN

Although it is God's responsibility to change and save our children, it is our responsibility to give them the training needed to make it happen. We must partner with God, or else, the divine touch that changes the human mind, reforms the character and transforms the soul, will elude our children. 

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it... provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4).

Now, successful child training demands knowledge of the stages of a child's development so that the content and method of the training maybe designed to match the potential of the child at each stage. Parents who lack this knowledge often have problems starting and sustaining effective training for their children.

A mother's meeting was discussing the question, "How early in a child's life should one seek to influence his/her life to accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord?" Opinions differed. The presiding mother, observing that a visiting gray-haired grandmother, though evidently much interested in the argument, kept numb while the argument was on. So she asked for her comment. The aged visitor rose and made this arresting reply: "I'll tell you when I started to influence my daughter for Christ. I began twenty years before she was born, by giving myself to the saving and keeping power of Jesus Christ!"

Parents should have been saved living a righteous and exemplary life before they can attempt to mould and save their children. Often, children are chips of the old blocks. Like father like son; like mother like daughter. If we don't know the way of salvation, how can we show it to our children.