The best for our children...have you studied?

I have come to realize that there is an enormous difference between wanting the best for our children and understanding what the best for our children really is. As my husband and I seem to be parting ways with modern culture in search of what God's best is for our family, we find ourselves walking down paths that just aren't popular with the crowd, yes even the "Christian" crowd. We find comfort in this, however, because Jesus too walked a path of a "square peg" existing in a "round" world. The longer I am alive, the more I have become uncomfortable in this world. Many of Satan's lies have been blown wide open for us. I use to feel the need to become defensive and to be understood, but that has transitioned into a feeling of peace as I have come to understand that God's ways will never be what everyone else is doing.

This leads me to the thought that we have not even began to understand what it means to "train a child in the way that he should go". We would love to claim victory through the second part of the verse, "and when he is old he will not depart from it", but we seldom want to truly seek the face of God when it comes to understanding what God means by training a child. I take this verse quite literal and believe that a parent that completely surrenders his AND her ways over to the leading of the Holy Spirit will experience the wisdom in this truth. We are seeking everyday, and know that we have so far to go. We don't want to take anything for granted and want nothing to slip through untested against the scriptures. God is moving in BIG ways and we are finding that we have to count on His ways, not the popular way. There are very few parents that I know that wouldn't say that they love their kids, and probably would give their own lives for their children. How many parents though, are willing to give everything over to the control of God in order to save their children? Would you give up your child's athletic success if the spirit so moved you? Would you sacrifice your child's academic achievements? Would you quit your job to spend more hours at home with your children? What would you be willing to do? Anything, to save your child?

Loving our children and wanting the best for them begins with complete surrender! Allow your children to feel uncomfortable in this world, you will do them a huge favor! Allow your child, however, to know the unconditional love of  a family life that reinforces what God expects of each of His children. Who you and your family are at home, is who you really are! Does everything your child understands about God come from someone else teaching them in a class you drop them off at? Is God contained in a church because that's the only time your child hears His name? Do sports, work and entertainment come before family worship time? Like I said, what your family does at home is what your family is really about. The disciplines of family life do not come easy, but only when we are seeking God intentionally will we ever know the joy of all He has to offer.