Monday, November 8, 2010

Holy Spirit Within

We are reading a book as part of our Family Ministry Team entitled "Spiritual Parenting" by Michelle Anthony. It's a great book and I would highly recommend it. An easy read but with some compelling take-aways.

Michelle states in the first chapter that "spiritual parenting is not perfect parenting-it's parenting from a spiritual perspective with eternity in mind". That didn't really hit home until later in the chapter she began talking about our children's behaviour. As parents we want our children to behave, correct? Yes, of course! But by raising them in a Christian home, exposing them to Christian environments don't they just choose to behave correctly? Can't we just correct them and mange their behavior? Michelle states that is not the case! This would be called "sin management" (p. 24). I really resonated with this statement: "the danger in merely focusing on our children's outward behavior without the inner transformation is that sometimes our children will align their behavior to our mandates to please us or receive approval" (p. 19).

Instead of trying to control our children's behavior by exposing them to Christian homes, environments and behavior modification, we need to rely on the Holy Spirit. He "is the one who makes their action congruent with their belief" (p. 24). We need to focus on the heart and not so much just their behavior! Without transformation from within by the Holy Spirit "we may have moral or obedient children, but we don't necessarily have spiritual children" (p. 19).

I wanted to see if this could really apply to my young children. So, one evening I had some alone time with my ten-year-old son and I asked him. "Hey Jacob, I want you to tell me honestly, why do you try to always get your good grades and why are you always such a good boy?" I really didn't know what his answer would be! However, I was so excited when he replied, "Mom, there is voice instead me telling me to do the right thing and always try my best". Wow! Clearly even without my teaching him, Jacob is aware of the Holy Spirit's voice instead of him!! What a huge blessing to me as a parent! So many times I feel like I'm such a failure as a parent!! Thank you Jesus for looking after my children even when I fail!!

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