My own children are grown now. I
did a lot of things wrong, but here are 10 practical love-in-action things I
did right for you to consider. Remember, love is what love does.
Lead Your Children in Family Devotions
Three or four days a week during
the school year, we had a 15-minute family devotion. I usually started with a
life situation - something in the neighborhood, from the newspaper or a school
situation. Then I read a Scripture passage that applied. We finished with each
of us saying a short prayer. To make the prayers more than "Let us have a
good day," we also prayed for someone in need each time.
Establish Work Boundaries
To make family my priority, I set
up some rules: Leave work no later than 6:00 p.m., don't take work home and
don't work weekends. During my evening commute, I'd let my mind process what
I'd been doing during the workday-until I drove over a creek about a mile from
our home. Then I would put everything into a mental briefcase and toss it into
the creek. That gave me a couple of minutes to prepare to greet my family.
If you want to lead a balanced
life, decide how many hours you want to work, and stick to your guns. Put work
appointments on your calendar in pencil, but put your family commitments in
pen. Love is time, and time is love.
Make Your Family Your No. 1 Ministry
A tornado ripped through our
church building. The call went out for volunteers to help clean up on Saturday.
But my son had a game that day, and I thought the game was a higher priority.
On Sunday the volunteers were asked to stand and be thanked publicly. I briefly
felt guilt and shame for not having been there with them.
Without intending to do so,
churches can put pressure on you to serve others to the neglect of your own
family. What's your response going to be? No one else cares about your family
like you do. No one else can, or should, take responsibility to disciple your
family. That one's on you. You have to set boundaries. Your most important
small group and ministry is your family. Until you get this right, you really
shouldn't be doing ministry anywhere else.
Spend Time With and Date Your Children
When our kids were young, we
played board games after dinner. I endured endless, mind-numbing repetitions of
Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders-games that require the IQ of a goldfish. I
drove our kids to school during the week and stayed home with them every
Saturday morning while Patsy ran errands. I cherished this time with them. Once
they became teenagers, I started taking one child out every Tuesday for a
dinner date and something fun, like ice cream, go-carts or the mall. Looking
back, those were the best, and almost only, one-on-one times we had. If you're
not intentional about this, a whole year can go by without you sharing a single
deep conversation with your kids.
Pray For and Encourage Your Children With
Words Every Day
I realized that my wife and I
were probably the only ones who would intentionally be praying for our kids
every day. So I made up a list of things to pray over: their salvation, growth,
integrity, work ethic, protection, future mates and so on. I don't think it's a
coincidence that all the specifics we prayed for are today a reality.
I also made it a goal to tell
each of my children daily, "I love you, and I'm proud of you" - words I didn't
hear growing up, which still affects me today. There's biblical precedent for
this: At both the baptism of Jesus and the transfiguration, God spoke and said,
"You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy." In other
words, "I love you, and I'm proud of you."
Pay Your Children to Read the Bible
Nothing has more potential to
transform our children into faithful followers of Jesus than reading God's
Word. But it probably won't happen by itself.
Patsy and I had an unconventional
idea about this. When our kids were about 12 and 9, we decided to pay them to
read the Bible. We told them, "If you will read five minutes a day for 25
or more days in a month, we'll give you the money to buy whatever CD you
want." I thought I detected a yawn.
Then we added, "And if you
read 25 days for 10 out of 12 months, we will pay you $250." Suddenly
their eyes lit up!
Finally we said, "But if you
read 25 days or more a month for all twelve months, we will double that and pay
you $500." That really got their attention! Our kids made monthly
calendars, taped them to their mirrors, and made an X through each day they
read. We put them on the honor system and even gave them the ability to make up
missed days.
Was that bribery? I don't know.
But our kids always did their daily devotions, and they both love Jesus. Paying
our kids to read the Bible was the single best thing we ever did for our
children's faith.
Be careful to focus on shaping
their hearts and not controlling their behavior. It worked for us because we
raised our children in a grace-based home rather than a performance-based home.
Don't let it become legalistic.
Attend as Many of Your Children's
Activities as Possible
Perhaps because of my own
experience with my parents not attending my games, I decided from the start
that I would never miss a recital or a game. And I never did. Fortunately, my
work allowed that flexibility. One of my greatest joys came the day my son
said, "Dad, I don't know what I want to do, but whatever it is, I want a
career that lets me attend my kids' games like you attended mine."
Eat Dinner Together
The dinner table can be the
medium that allows families to transfer spiritual and moral values from one
generation to the next. So we made eating dinner together a priority. We worked
around school activities and didn't answer the phone during dinner. That's not
likely to happen every night without fail, but at least don't make choices that
preclude it.
Expose Your Children to Ministry
We participated as a family in
many of the ministry opportunities offered by our church. In fact, we selected
ministries precisely because we could include our children, such as housing
visiting missionaries and delivering Thanksgiving meals. When they were older,
our kids went without us to youth camps and on mission trips, which helped them
build confidence in their own faith.
Make Your Children Responsible to Attend
Church
Just as it's foolish to let your
kids skip school, it's foolish to let them skip church. When kids are young,
they will freely go to church if you go. Once our kids were teens, though, we
experienced resistance. They were "too tired to go to church" after
being out on Saturday night. So rather than do battle every Sunday morning, we
transferred responsibility for attending church to them. If they were too tired
to attend church, they could sleep in and skip church, but then the following
Saturday night, they needed to stay home so they wouldn't be so tired. Guess
how many times that happened again?
You hold an awesome power.
Right now, your kids desperately
need to know that someone loves them as they are. They yearn for someone who
will overlook their faults, forgive their sins and love them without reserve.
They hunger for someone who delights in and believes in them. They thirst for
someone who thinks they're great-who thinks the best of their motives. Whether
they can articulate it or not, they long for someone who will make them feel
safe.
You are God's designated
solution.
Are you willing to make the first
move.... and keep on making it?
Challenge yourself to risk
everything to be a vessel of God's love. It will transform your relationships,
starting at home. Use the love word indiscriminately, even recklessly. Ask God
to empower you to be uninhibited in love. Jesus proved it's true: There's
nothing more powerful in this world than a man who will love without
reservation.
Patrick Morley
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