Skip to main content

Raising Our Children: Principles We Followed

Here are a few principles we followed in raising our children.

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes” (Deut. 11:18).

We saturated the children with love.

Love and respect. It took us a while to learn this, but this we went overkill with respect and love.

We anticipated problems so we met them before they happened so there was no rebellion. Here are two examples of that.

We lived in Annapolis Maryland from 1958-1968. I cut Doug and Evan’s hair. I cut it right over the top. Then we moved to Ann Arbor. It might as well have been Boulder or Berkeley. Ann Arbor was Hippyville. I asked Bessie what she thought of long hair. She did not like it. Neither did I. I asked her if she thought long hair was a sin. “No!” “Well, since we do not think it is a sin, let’s call the boys I and tell them they can grow their hair.” They had never asked to grow their hair. The other kids in the church grew their hair out of rebellion. Ours grew theirs with permission.

We also let Doug and Evan have the car to drive to the East Coast.

Some years later, I asked our daughter Heather if she knew why she had not rebelled. She said that she knew that the day she stepped out of line, we would leave the ministry. She also told me that she had asked Douglas why he had not rebelled. He replied that it was hard to rebel against someone you agreed with.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Is Obedience So Hard?

There are several reasons why obedience seems hard. I will comment on some of them and then speak positively on how obedience is easy. We think: 1) Obedience is an infringement on freedom. Since we are free in Christ, and obedience is somehow contrary to that freedom, we conclude that obedience is not good. Yet we know it is good. Thus, we become confused about obedience and are not single-minded. 2) Obedience is works. We who have been justified by grace through faith are opposed to works; therefore, we are opposed to obedience. 3) We have tried to obey and have failed—frequently. Therefore, the only solution is to disobey and later confess to receive forgiveness. It is easier to be forgiven by grace than to obey by effort. 4) We confuse obedience to men with obedience to God. Although these are sometimes one and the same (see Romans 13, 1 Peter 2-3, Ephesians 5-6, Colossians 3, and Titus 2), sometimes they are not the same (see Colossians 2:20-23, Mark 7, 1 Timothy 4:1-5, a

Getting Old

This is a post for those who are getting old or considering themselves old, from 65-100. Right now, I am 91.* I will be 92 in October. I have my own house, but I cannot live in it alone because of my physical inability to move around. One of my sons lives with me. All of us will have to make some adjustments. That includes money, relatives, your own ability and willpower to stay independent, etc. My advice is if physically and financially you can live independently, you should certainly do that. If you do, you will still need to have visits from your family frequently. You need your family. Even if you don’t need them to take care of you, you need them for the fellowship. The more fellowship you have, the longer you’ll live. If you can stay independent do it, but only if friends and relatives can see you often. In my case, I can’t walk, and I can’t do much physically. So, whether I like it or not, someone else has to get me up, get me showered, and get me dressed. I am blessed to have

Three Types of People Christians Aren't Loving

There are three types of people in the world that Christians do not love with the Gospel . The first type are the people we witness to but do not love. The second type are the unbelievers that we do not witness to. The third are people we love but do not witness to. That sounds like doubletalk. Let’s change it. 1) We witness to people we love. 2) We love everybody and witness to them with love. As Christians, we have the fruit of the Spirit—love. We are commanded to love our neighbors and our enemies. The first thing is to have the love. The second is to choose to love our neighbors and enemies. Sometimes we can’t make the choice because we have lost the fruit of the Spirit, love. We lack the fruit of the Spirit of love because we are under the chastening of the Lord because of unconfessed sin. In order to get the love back, we must confess sin. Once we get the love back, we can choose to love our neighbors and enemies and preach the gospel to them.   Written December 22,