"My faith is too feeble for fake. I can't afford to front here friends.I've got to have the real Jesus. Empty rituals and man-made routines and absent-minded traditions....those things won't do. Those things don't woo a doubter."
Yeah....they won't woo your wee ones either. Not after they grow wings, anyway.
So creating an atmosphere that simply welcomes Him - it's a duty we better embrace.
Clay and Sally Clarkson...in Educating the Whole-Hearted Child....shout wisdom when they say:
"Home nurture is bringing the life of Christ into your home. Many Christian parents mistakenly believe this is accomplished only by adopting a Christian lifestyle......A Christian lifestyle alone might cause your children to long for Christianity, but only regular exposure to the living God will cause them to long for Christ. When you understand the power of home nurture, you realize you are shepherding your children's hearts and planting seeds of longing for the living God. You are giving them life." (p.20, emphasis mine)
Mama, say hello to your role.
Say hello to praying your heart inside out and going to front line battle and stretching out long to create a home that allows our children to hear His beckoning.
Our shows of compassion toward our children when they stump their toes, our forgiving nature when it comes to broken vases and shards of glass and sassy remarks, our open laps, our patting of shoulders, our admitting wrong, our meaning what we say, our mercies extended to Daddy, our tending of wounds, our tending to illness, our taking soup to a shut-in, our prayer times, our study of the Word, our transformation, our grace extended - when lived out simply because He lives in us.... these things demonstrate the Divine.
And it's worth mentioning that.....
Our shouts and our awkward silences and our crude words and our rage anger and our laziness and our blind ignorance and our passivity and our constant striving for more and our lack of contentment and our selfish natures on display - these things can drown out and drone over the voice of the Spirit - wanting to woo the young lives in our care. He's God - He can get through in any type of chaos (sometimes especially there) but why allow our unrighteousness to hush His voice... when souls are at stake?
We want our kids to be able to hear - and be attracted to....God's callings.
Not lifestyle, culture, rules, fanciful traditions, hype and emotion - but Him.
Speaking of emotion.....
David Guzik's commentary on the last few verses of John 13 - highlights this well:
Scripture: Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake." Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times."
Commentary: "Poor Peter! He would have died for Jesus right then but he later failed because his devotion was based on emotion.
- Emotion is vital to the Christian walk, but it can’t be its power or foundation.
- We see a different Peter when his walk is no longer built on emotion, but on the work of Jesus on the cross and the empowering of the Holy Spirit."* (emphasis mine)
That's hype verses Holy right there.
We want Holy.
Because what happens.....when He captures a heart...and makes it wholly Holy?
Love and action and good work and movement and results.
"A divinely transformed heart, by its very nature, will produce right action. It simply cannot do otherwise." - Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water (pg.71)
Mom! This is what we are after!
For us...for them.
*Commentary from www.blueletterbible.com
