When you have children, you have ideas about what you want them to be like as they grow up. Depending on what’s important to you–or in some cases, unfulfilled dreams in your own life–you point them in certain directions. You might hope that they’ll be a gifted, dedicated athlete who gets a full ride to college. Or you want them to be brilliant academically, breezing through school with a perfect GPA and high test scores and the consequent college acceptance letters. You might hope that they’ll turn out to be visionary leaders who quickly climb the corporate ladder.
And so you get them involved in sports early, hoping they’ll develop the needed passion and self-discipline. Or you start reading to them at birth and always stress the importance of learning. You teach them independence and courage and create opportunities for them to learn to think big.
And of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that . . . unless those emphases overshadow what’s most important.
Tomorrow we’ll think about your child’s heart. It’s easy to fall into the world’s trap and do all the things that shape your children athletically, academically, or socially, while not being as intentional about what you do in pointing their hearts toward Jesus.
If we succeed with all the rest, but our children’s hearts aren’t full of love for Jesus, what then?
0 Comments