Monday, June 12, 2023
Bring Them Up
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4 NLT)
A while back I was at a restaurant with my wife, and we were enjoying the view as the sun began to set. Then I glanced at a table nearby where a young family was sitting.
The dad was on his phone, the mother was on her phone, and the baby was on a tablet—in fact, there was a tablet holder in the stroller!
I thought, “What are we doing to these kids?” We put them in front of devices and bombard them with information, and I wonder whether their brains are forming properly. Are they even learning to read social cues and communicate?
What concerns me is that a lot of parents are leaving their kids to themselves. Yet it’s the parents’ job to raise their own children. God created the family, and He loves the family. And as someone has pointed out, a family can survive without a nation, but a nation cannot survive without the family.
Ephesian 6:4 reminds us, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord” (NLT). The phrase “bring them up” means “to nourish.”
We should protect our children, watch over them, and help them process what they’re being exposed to.
Moses said to the Israelites, “And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7 NLT).
As a parent, nothing can happen through you until it has first happened to you. You cannot take your children any further spiritually than you have gone yourself.
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