This “guest” post is from Brad Clark, a husband, father and friend of mine. I think you’ll appreciate Brad’s heart on this, and be challenged and encouraged by it as much as I was.
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Deuteronomy 6:5-7 hit me in a totally different light today.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 (NIV)
I was laying in bed last night wondering how I could get my son to really want to pursue something with diligence (God, school, sports, cleaning his room) anything! I thought about what would motivate him, what would finally turn on his light bulb and make him realize that he has a great deal of potential and opportunity in front of him that he has not even begun to take advantage of.
I thought about how he and I spend most of our time together, the things we do, places we go. I was stumped.
Then I read the passage in Deuteronomy and realized I hadn’t really followed that verse to its fullest intent.
Had I been loving God with all of my heart? All of my soul? With all of my strength? No.
Had I been impressing these things on Tyler with all my heart? With all my soul? With all of my strength? Not even close.
If I am not living my life the way God has commanded me and realizing the potential I have in Him then how could I expect Tyler to ever want to reach for a potential he is most likely not seeing in me. What a smack upside the head.
The father is not merely passing on religious information; he is sharing his own love of God with his children. Therefore what is caught by children will be as important as what is taught to children. In other words, children will be able to easily see if their father truly loves God.
Please say a quick prayer for me today that I might be much more persistent in pursuing God with all my heart, soul and strength and in turn help my son to realize his potential not only on a personal worldly level, but on a greater spiritual level as well.
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THANK YOU BRAD! It is my prayer for myself and every parent out there that we would be persistent in pursuing God with every part of our being. It is primarily through our example that our children will follow God whole-heartedly or half-heartedly!
1 comment
Gary Alexander says:
October 1, 2009 at 9:38 am (UTC -4 )
What a terrific insight. If only all father’s could see it the way Brad does. Unfortunately, not many do until it’s too late. The world tells us that “it’s not the quantity of time you spend with your children, it’s the quality.” Baloney. It’s both. As Brad says, our values need to be “caught” as well as “taught”. You can’t expect them to catch anything except maybe a cold without spending a lot of time together. Just like our relationship with God. We can’t expect to become closer to him unless we are willing to spend both quality and quantities of time with Him. – GWA