Parenting

Isa.40:¹¹ “He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in his arms, holding them close to his heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.”

Effective parenting only happens within the confines of sufficiency, wisdom, and love. Abuse begins when authority is misused outside of these lines. Take wisdom for instance; the Bible says, “Train up a child in the way that he should go…” Note that the Bible did not say, “train up children”, it said a child. The root word is singular. So, someone that has seven children for instance, would have to train each child one at a time. You need to know what everyone is capable of doing; you need to know each need, each one. It takes a lot of wisdom to train up a child as the Bible prescribes.

In Scripture, God would sometimes describe the Jews as a wild donkey and He would equally deal with them as wild donkeys. At other times, He would refer to them as a bruised reed and a smoking flask. God says, “A bruised reed I will not break, a smoking flask I will not put out…” It takes wisdom to know when a child needs to be treated like a wild donkey or like a bruised reed.

When a child needs to be treated as a bruised reed and you handle that child like a wild donkey, you are going to break that child. When a child is acting like a wild donkey, you better tame that child. Believe me, that is not the time to treat the child like a bruised reed. Effective parenting takes love because without love, parenting will always be abusive and destructive. When the heart behind disciplining your children is not love, it will lead to abuse. When love disciplines, love focuses on improving not destroying. Even in the marriage relationship, when the husband exercises authority on his wife outside of love, it often leads to abuse. God says, “Husbands love your wives…”

Prayer: Father, I ask for the wisdom for parenting in such a way that my children will hunger for and fall in love with You, in Jesus Name. Amen!