Sunday, May 29, 2011

Not Guilty...

Our kids can bring out the best in us.
And oh, boy, can they bring out the worst.

I feel like my lil' D can, with simple actions, take me from laughing to anger in 3 seconds flat.

Seriously.

In our Growing Kids God's Way parenting SS class, we are looking at a child's conscience. It's interesting the way God made us. It's also scary the job that we have in forming our child's conscience. It's a big job.

I do not want my little man to be good to just simply please me, which I believe is the phase he is going through now. He is so good. Really. He's a doll. But I do believe he might turn into a little monster when I'm not around, which is evidence for my aforementioned statement. The goal, ultimately, would be to foster a conscience that is Christ-like: others-minded and self-controlled.

I also don't want him to be good out of guilt. I do not think that guilt is a good emotion to have. It is as unhealthy as it gets. To do something for fear of what another might think/do is just...probably how I live my life sometimes. But I don't want to. And I certainly don't want that for my child. How do I...not pass this on to him?

This whole discipline thing can be done so wrongly {and so quickly, depending on your temperament}. I do not want my child to fear me...be scared of me. I simply long for him to mind, even if it doesn't make sense or he doesn't want to.

{I wonder if that's how God feels about me and my wayward, selfish spirit.}

Speaking of the greatest Father of all...what a blessing that we have His ultimate example to lead us. If we are not in the Word, we may not see it. We might just miss out on great parenting advices and examples. But tonight, I ran into this which made me think about our child's conscience:

"...do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" {Romans 2:4}


The section is on judgements. And what I really want to grow in my brown-eyed boy is a sense of right and wrong, along with the desire to do the right thing in his core. I can't make him do right. I kinda can right now with all the nudging, coaching, discussing of decisions. But what about when he's 12? 18? 21? 29?

And the truth is, as stated in the passage above - God's kindness is used to lead us to repentance. 

It isn't a fear of Him {though that is there}.
It isn't the judgements other people will give me. That's pretty pointless in life.
It isn't the fear of Hell {not that I wanna go there, though}.
It isn't out of an unhealthy guilt {that might be there even when you're doing right}.


It's His love. His kindness. His gentleness. The way He stops everything to look for the 1 lost sheep, throws it over his shoulders and throws a party when He finds it {see Luke 15:1-7}. It's the sacrifice that He gave for little ol' me and my bad choices.


Now...how do I relay that to my 5 year old? How do you discipline with such love, kindness, grace, and gentleness as displayed by the Father?


Deep thoughts for a Sunday night...I leave you with this:


{really...does it GET much better than this?!}

3 comments:

  1. You always give such a blessing with your posts! I am always smiling, relating, and really put to work on myself when I read your posts! Thank you! And look at that handsome little man!

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  2. We really must get together soon, LaRae! :-) Maybe a cookout!? We'll talk soon, k?

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  3. Thanks for stopping by the Growing Kids Ministry blog! Great post. Our daughter is 18 months and we're just starting to get into some discipline. It's funny how she already knows things she shouldn't be doing. I'll walk into a room where she's playing with a forbidden item and she'll quickly hide it behind her back and shake her head. Oh boy.

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