Spirituality in parenting

Parenting is the toughest job in America. Single parenting, therefore, is twice as hard. Parenting in America is probably more difficult than any country. Parents, inaudibly or with loud voice, are crying out for help. Seminars and books provide little help. Real help comes from the Lord.

Please don’t shut me out because I just got spiritual. More than anything else, parents must become spiritual in order to help their plight with their children. The Bible says, “If the Lord doesn’t build the house, the builders only build a shack” (Psalm 127a – The Message Bible).

How do we get spiritual in our homes as we raise children? We make spiritual things more important than cultural things. Birthdays, for instance. It should be much more of a pivotal family event for a child to accept Jesus Christ, be baptized, and join the church than to observe the child’s 16th birthday.

MTV has a show called “My Super Sweet 16” that “takes you on a wild ride behind the scenes for all the drama, surprises and over-the-top fun as teens prepare for their most important coming-of-age celebrations,” so says one of the promotions. What’s really important: turning 16 or turning one’s heart over to God? What’s driving your family? Culture or Christ?

As you, the parent, begin to welcome the Lord as a building partner in your home, you’ll also need to establish some relational convictions. How will your family treat other people? Jesus had a good idea: “All things you want people to do to you, do therefore to them” (Matthew 7:12). Who wants to be called “stupid?” Who wants to be told “shut up?” Rabbi Hillel, an outstanding Jewish teacher of the law in Jesus’ day, was asked by a student to summarize his teaching standing on one foot. He stood on one leg and said, “What is hateful to thee, do not to another do. This is the whole law and all else is explanation.”

Parents more than anyone else determine how their children will treat other people. Teach while you have opportunity.

With the Lord at the helm of your home, parents have to demonstrate a few important moral convictions about what is right and wrong. The media teaches go with the flow; do whatever floats your boat; if it feels good, do it. The media makes parents feel like we are Puritans if we teach what’s right and wrong. Let me encourage you parents to forge ahead. Tell your children not to have sex until they are married. Tell them smoking will kill them. Tell them drinking is dubious for any age.

In addition to telling them what is right and what is wrong, you will be teaching them that when they do wrong, they will know how to get right again. Moral teaching means that your child has the security of a parent who will teach instead of a parent who just seeks to be a best friend.

With the Lord as your main builder, your children will learn the great quality called respect. Aretha Franklin helped us learn how to spell the word. Giving respect is much more difficult. The Bible says “Never pay back evil for evil. Respect what is right in the sight of all men” (Romans 12:17).

When children grow up with a healthy sense of respect woven in their behavior, parents can rest easy when their children are somewhere else like school, church, the highways, a movie house, etc. Teachers would have a greater joy in any classroom if there was greater respect paid. It was my parents who taught respect from my early years: say “sir” and “ma’m,” never just “what?” Don’t interrupt another person. Stand when an adult or a woman enters the room.

Yes, parenting is tough. When any parent accepts the Lord and his words as the master builder and as the blueprints for building, it does not get easier. It just becomes a mission with a plan. And therefore a parent has hope for his or her kids and their hope for a better life.