Parenting is a big job. There are so many things that we hope on for our children. We hope they’ll learn to play well with others. We hope they’ll learn respect for authority. We hope they’ll learn to think, use logic, and do right. And we dive, full bore, into teaching these things. For us as believers, we prayed our son would understand sin, grace, and the love of God. One of the things we’ve worked on is understanding relationships, and that when we sin against another, we’ve hurt the relationship. We need to ask forgiveness in order to mend the relationship. We practice this with one another and with our son daily. A cross word, rude speech, impatience…all of these are reasons for us to seek one another’s forgiveness, whether ours or our son’s.
One day, my husband and I got into an argument. We aren’t loud arguers, but it wasn’t a secret that we were arguing. We were in the kitchen; our son was in the living room. My husband walked into the bedroom at one point and I moved on to get a bit of dinner ready. We were NOT okay. We are, however, fairly good at putting tough conversations on the shelf until we can talk again, uninterrupted.
The next thing I heard was my six-year-old’s voice.
“Well Dad, how long are you going to let this go?”
“I don’t know, son,” responded my husband, clearly exasperated.
“Well, the sooner you take care of this, the sooner your relationship will be repaired with Mama.” To my son, this was plain and clear.
“I know son.”
By this time, the exasperation was gone from my husband’s voice. There was only amusement. For my part, I was struggling not to chuckle aloud in the kitchen. I have to admit that I felt a little bad for my dear husband, having his own teaching used on him like that. Being held accountable for your own teaching can be tough!
“Well?” said my son.
My husband got up to come into the kitchen. That’s when we heard it. My son was so convinced that this was the right thing to do, the best thing to do, and more than that: this obedience is where blessing is found. As my husband walked out of the room, my son’s voice followed him with gusto. “Go get ‘em, Dad!”
We have been laughing about that story for about four months. But in seriousness, THAT is God at work. As parents, we pray that our teaching will take hold in the hearts of our little ones. I guess we know God has answered with a resounding yes when our own teaching is used by those very little ones to hold US accountable for our own behavior. The reality is that our job is to be faithful in teaching and training our children in the context of the most stable and loving environment possible. We can’t change their hearts. It’s the Lord who causes our teaching to take root in their hearts and minds. We show them the path. It’s a joy when they grow able to point to the right path themselves. It’s God at work.
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