Equipping your children

I have been reading Kay Arthur and Beth Moore lately. The prevailing theme of both books has been the redeeming grace of God. Since I have been under wonderful Bible teaching all my life, I am convinced of the truth of this. God can and does take broken lives and piece them together for His service.

But it is also important to know that the Grace of God is capable of keeping us from sabotaging our own lives. I mean, you don't have to make a mess of things in order to experience the grace of God. Grace can keep you from sin, if you'll allow it.

As parents, we are in a position to be the instruments of that grace. We can and must do our jobs as parents to help our kids make the right choices and withstand temptations. We can't and shoudn't shield them from all tenptation, we can regulate it. We don't have to send our kids to swim with the sharks. We can, figuratively speaking, train them about sharks. They can and must, learn how to be safe if they come into contact with a shark. We can watch as they face the sharks. Someday, when they are alone, they will remember our diligent training and they will be safe in any environment.

Do you get what I am saying? Prevention now is better that grace later. I once heard a man say that he was glad he got into terrible sin, because now he understood the grace of God. Baloney!!!!! I'll bet his wife didn't feel that way, or his kids. God does not tell us to flirt with sin so that we can experience His grace. He says to FLEE!!!!! Run! Escape! These are valuable skills we can give our Christian children.

We don't over-protect, we must train. You don't tell you kids never to cross the street. When they are old enough, you take them out, explain the "stop, look, listen", you show them the cross walk. You cross with them a few times. Then you watch from behind the curtain to see if they are obeying the procedures for safe crossings. Then you will know that, no matter where they are, and who they are with, they will cross safely. We can do this with tempting situations. We must! Their life depends on it!