I guess this is my biggest and tallest "Soap Box", but I believe it is the most serious and most urgent thing we could be involved in while our children are small.
Some people have likened the "neglect of training children" to leaving the gate open and the horse getting out. I think a better allegory is: Trying to get sugar out of the tea when you've over-sweetened it. You can sometimes get a horse back into the the corral but it is very difficult to dip the sugar back out of a liquid. All you can do is to try to dilute the 'too sweet tea' with more unsweetened tea.
That is about all we can do about our children when it is too late too...just try to dilute the garbage we have allowed...with the good stuff. It may be the only hope we have left at that point. How sad that is! Because there are so very many little teachable moments while they are growing up, at whatever age they happen to be....but we dohave to be with them to take advantage of thos teachable moments.
If you have noticed, most adult children do not come back...at least until it is too late to train their own little ones. We have seen many through the year 'get faithful' after their children are grown up. If you have young children and you are faithful to God now, while they are growinig up, be so thankful and give Him the glory for His grace. Generations have a tendency to repeat themselves either for good or for evil. God tells us to completely surround our children with His Word while they are growing up...teaching them to love it.
Deuteronomy 6: 5-9 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."
Time is fleeting and their growing up years fade into adult years before we are hardly aware of it.
©Edna L. Ingram
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