Unbreakable Joy: Parenting

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Children and Treasuring Christ

How do you teach a child to treasure Jesus? Left unattended to and otherwise undirected, children will catch the treasuring tendencies of those around them (family, friends etc.).

Is it possible to help direct the affections of your child's heart?

It is absolutely possible to direct the treasuring language that comes only from lips while heart affections long after whatever brings most pleasure. It's very easy to teach a child to mimic language. But as we know language alone is not evidence of a love for God.

So it seems our children may be most affected in the direction of their treasuring by seeing the hearts of their family and friends caught ablaze with true affections (and not merely verbal) for God. Children should be brought into experiences of delighting in God with their parents especially and hopefully other family and friends also.

I've shared this illustration at the jail and found it to be effective in relaying a powerful truth.

My daughter's loves her little pets (plastic toys). She takes them everywhere with her, to church, to the store, to grandma's house. Her daddy loves her and enjoys providing financially for her collection of these toys. Her daddy also gladly provides for her housing, food, and clothing. As daddies do, her daddy also protects her and teaches her and smothers her with affection. Wouldn't it be foolish for her to treasure more her little pets than her daddy?

In the same way wouldn't it be foolish for us to treasure more, enjoy more, and delight in more in the little pets (enjoyable things) of this world than our Heavenly Father? Wouldn't it be foolish of us to treasure more our homes, vehicles, toys, health, insurance benefits, retirement plans, family and friends more than God?

Of course the answer is yes this would be very foolish. Yet we desperately need to consider this more than just in passing. It is after all very easy to say with our mouths that we treasure God while the proof of our lives is showing that we are in fact treasuring everything else.

May our children find us truly treasuring Him who is most valuable. May they be caught up into our being caught up into "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor. 4:6)

Noteworthy Quotes

Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly so worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.
- George Mueller

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
- C.S. Lewis

A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, a spiritual man is hard on himself and easy on others.
- A. W. Tozer

Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Thee.
- Augustine

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
- Blaise Pascal

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
- Jim Elliot

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
- C. S. Lewis

He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.
- Augustine

The men of this world are children. Offer a child an apple or a bank note, and he will doubtless choose the apple.
- John Newton

In the end the heart longs not for any of God's good gifts, but for God Himself. To see Him and know Him and be in His presence is the soul's final feast. Beyond this there is no quest. Words fail. We call it pleasure, joy, delight. But these are weak pointers to the unspeakable experience.
- John Piper

God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Him, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
- C.S. Lewis

It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him. He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance. He must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end. So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles, the Godly fellowship of the prophets and the believing members of the holy church in all generations. And so must we if we would follow in their train.
- A.W. Tozer

If God contains the fullness of all good things in Himself like an inexhaustible fountain, nothing beyond him is to be sought by those who strike after the highest good and all the elements of happiness.
- John Calvin

God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him.
- John Piper

God glorifies Himself toward the creature in two ways; by appearing to their understanding, and in communicating Himself to thief hearts and their rejoicing in and delighting in Him, and enjoying manifestations He makes of Himself. God is Glorified not only by His glories being seen, but by it’s being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that he might communicate and the creature receive His glory, and that it might be received both by the mind and the heart. He that testifies His idea of God’s glory doesn’t glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it.
- Jonathan Edwards