money_pit_yj
Well-Known Member
Training Season
Last weekend my 6 year old won his first wrestling match. Because of his age there are not a lot of kids to wrestle so he and his partner have wrestled day in and day out for weeks and my son finally beat the other boy. At 6 years old, kids want to try everything, so we have a rule at our house: If you start the season, you will finish the season. You do not ever have to play again, but if you play game 1 you are practicing and sticking with it until the last game. We do everything we can to make practices and games, and unless it is on Wednesday or Sunday we do pretty well about being there. We are trying to train him to work hard and stick with things even when they are not the best of circumstances.
More than boys who are good at sports and know how to win or lose on the field, we are trying to raise up men who love and fear Jesus. It is our responsibility as parents to live life and show our boys how to glorify God through our daily routines, and how to commit our lives to serving others through Christ Jesus. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." Notice it does not say "send them to church, or Christian school, or camp and when he is old He will not depart from it" it says "train" which for all you English majors means "you train". While church and Christian school and camp are all good things, as are sports and extracurricular activities, they are not meant to train our child. We are to train our child. One thing to remember is that as our children watch us daily no matter if we realize it or not, we are training them. If we place all our other commitments over our relationship with Jesus, what can we expect from them? If we are irresponsible with our money, what can we expect from them? Ah, but what if we walked daily with Jesus, served the less fortunate, prayed openly and often, humbled ourselves and asked God to use us for His glory, what can we expect from our kids?
In major league baseball, spring training is a time where teams go across the country, isolate themselves, remove all their distractions and intentionally work, live and eat together with the specific purpose of winning the World Series. This kind of sounds like a family, right? What if we as moms and dads daily showed our kids what commitment to Christ looked like, and walked with them through their journey to Jesus? We have our kids for at least 18 years, think about the amount of training we could do in that time then, think about the amount of training they will get somewhere during that time. As we encourage our kids to work hard and try to win trophies, let us all try and remember that the crowns they store up in heaven are far more valuable than any earthly trophy we could ever win. Let's commit to train them up in the way they should go and have Faith in God that they will not depart from it.
God, let my relationship with you be my first priority, and training my family up in your ways be my second. Let all else I do revolve around my families commitment to you, Amen.
Last weekend my 6 year old won his first wrestling match. Because of his age there are not a lot of kids to wrestle so he and his partner have wrestled day in and day out for weeks and my son finally beat the other boy. At 6 years old, kids want to try everything, so we have a rule at our house: If you start the season, you will finish the season. You do not ever have to play again, but if you play game 1 you are practicing and sticking with it until the last game. We do everything we can to make practices and games, and unless it is on Wednesday or Sunday we do pretty well about being there. We are trying to train him to work hard and stick with things even when they are not the best of circumstances.
More than boys who are good at sports and know how to win or lose on the field, we are trying to raise up men who love and fear Jesus. It is our responsibility as parents to live life and show our boys how to glorify God through our daily routines, and how to commit our lives to serving others through Christ Jesus. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." Notice it does not say "send them to church, or Christian school, or camp and when he is old He will not depart from it" it says "train" which for all you English majors means "you train". While church and Christian school and camp are all good things, as are sports and extracurricular activities, they are not meant to train our child. We are to train our child. One thing to remember is that as our children watch us daily no matter if we realize it or not, we are training them. If we place all our other commitments over our relationship with Jesus, what can we expect from them? If we are irresponsible with our money, what can we expect from them? Ah, but what if we walked daily with Jesus, served the less fortunate, prayed openly and often, humbled ourselves and asked God to use us for His glory, what can we expect from our kids?
In major league baseball, spring training is a time where teams go across the country, isolate themselves, remove all their distractions and intentionally work, live and eat together with the specific purpose of winning the World Series. This kind of sounds like a family, right? What if we as moms and dads daily showed our kids what commitment to Christ looked like, and walked with them through their journey to Jesus? We have our kids for at least 18 years, think about the amount of training we could do in that time then, think about the amount of training they will get somewhere during that time. As we encourage our kids to work hard and try to win trophies, let us all try and remember that the crowns they store up in heaven are far more valuable than any earthly trophy we could ever win. Let's commit to train them up in the way they should go and have Faith in God that they will not depart from it.
God, let my relationship with you be my first priority, and training my family up in your ways be my second. Let all else I do revolve around my families commitment to you, Amen.