Teach your children well

I have striven to raise my children to be wise, to think for themselves. I think sometimes people try to avoid forcing their kids to adopt their values, so that they will be free to form their own. I would rather talk to my kids about what I believe and help them understand why I believe it, knowing that in the end, they will form their own opinions anyway, no matter what I tell them. Thinking that avoiding giving them any of my stuff will somehow help them doesn't ring true with me, they will aquire stuff along the way, baggage comes with life. I let them know where I stand and what I expect of them. I feel just as bad for people who feel they must stamp their kids into a model they feel is the right one, I see the kids react by going totally their own way and then the parents feel they have failed. I have found the way God raises us is that he sets down rules, and he says what will happen when we don't do it his way. Then he lets us make our own choices and learn that he is right.

That's where I differ with people who feel God is a strict disciplinarian who threatens us to make us do what is right. My experience of him is that he is loving, and he has nothing to prove to me. He is in control and he knows it. If I don't know it yet, I will find out. Things work better his way, because he made us and knows us, it's his world. Like reading the manual to your new car and then throwing it out the window, because you know better. God knows me better than I know myself. He lets me make my own decisions because he respects my personhood, but he also lets me suffer the consequences from my decisions, because he respects my personhood. He is perfectly willing to help me if I ask but he won't step on me and make me do it his way. He has all of eternity to help me grow up.

As I learn how he is, I learn to lean on him, to ask for help and to wait for his timing, not mine. I used to worry, "what if he doesn't do anything" or "I want this to happen right now". Now I have learned that he always answers, that whatever the situation is, he will make it work out, and when I wait for him, things work out better. I don't find myself fighting him as much because i have begun to trust him more.

I love that God isn't forcing me to be a certain way, he is leading me to be the person I am meant to be. He allows that to happen, doesn't demand it. It really helps me to realize that, because just about the time I am saying to myself "what is going on, when am I ever going to get where I am going, how is this part of God's plan", I remember that he loves me, that he wants what is best for me and that his intention is always to see me and my family blessed. So whatever is going on, he is involved and working it out. I don't need to worry.

I try to incorporate that into my kids, but boy is it hard. I pray about every night that God will help me to be a better parent, I get so frustrated and I am sure that I say things that hurt my kids. I just want them to hear, and they seem to never listen. I am amazed when I think about how good God is at listening, building us up without letting us get too inflated or too beaten down, and how patient he is. I get angry so quickly, and I fly off at the mouth.

I know that God waits for us to move toward him, he is always there and reaching for us, but he waits for us to seek him. He says time and time again, if you seek me, you will find me. People who say they don't believe in God simply haven't found him. Either they aren't looking with their heart, or they have been hurt and built up walls against religion, or they just aren't ready to believe. But I know that those who are really looking for him, find him. He isn't trying to hide but he will allow himself to go unnoticed so that those who don't want him don't have to have him. He is a gentleman that way. Even people who don't really know what they believe, when they are really looing for truth, find him eventually. I think that is amazing. It's not about a system that one has to learn, a set of rules and rituals that make one clean or holy or whatever. It is about a direct experience with the living God who made us. When that happens in your life, you know that he is real. There is no guessing. You know that God is and he is love.