Parenting is no easy task. Raising children spirit first takes much work as it demands engagement to build them intentionally.
Honestly, when we’ve nurtured our children’s spirits, they are in better shape than we are (in many areas).
Father has given these tasks to each generation. To the parents, He’s tasked them to make things better. To the children, He’s tasked them to take what was given and to build it bigger.
Think Abraham. Father called Abraham to leave all that he knew, and to go stake a claim in a new land. Abraham became an immigrant of faith for God. The generation who leaves and immigrates has a harder time of it, as they completely start over.
Isaac received what his father had worked for. From that higher point, and with Father’s blessing, he built it bigger. In turn, Isaac had much more to bequeath to Jacob.
From generation to generation, as everyone does their part, life and blessings build in momentum!
What you’ve had to face in your life – your ceiling – becomes your children’s floor.
This is great news!
As a result of spirit nurture, your work, and Father’s calling, your children are healthy. Marks of health include: 1. Strong will (direction, purpose, etc.!) 2. Strong emotions (desires, passions, reactions!) 3. Strong mind (opinions! thoughts!). 4. Strong spirit (praise the Lord!).
What this looks like in real time is much work to get that strong, healthy child trained.
Guess what? Not every day do we parents feel like going into Olympic coach training mode! We don’t get the luxury of that singular focus because of the multiples that life has stacked on our plates!
Thus, as a result of their health, our nurtured-spirit children have made life more difficult on us, parents.
Father, I’m asking You for greater grace and times of refreshing and renewal for these parents, grandparents, and caregivers in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Key ways to make it easier:
- Recognize that training/discipline models you’ve been brought up with, or have read, may not work with your child.
- Be ready to throw out what you know. Commit your parenting to the Father—whose child both you and your children are. Ask for His wisdom. Be flexible. If one way isn’t working, ask Him for help to solve the impasse and to train them in the way they, personally, are designed by Him to go.
- Repent daily. Your children have inadvertently made life harder. They may have the strength of Samson. The fortitude of John the Baptist. The creative/expressive-worship anointing-leadership calling of David. The faith of Abraham. This is healthy, good and right. They’ll win big with Father in life. But, your life was harder today and this season having to wrangle them. Every evening, confess your anger and unforgiveness with them to the Father, asking His forgiveness, so that the Father’s enemy does not use their good gifts of strength and health to push his foot in your family’s door, Ephesians 4:26-27.
by Crystal Wade, copyright 2018
The Living Hope Blog 