The following is a piece taken from a book writen in the late 1800's called THE DUTIES OF PARENTS. The entire book can be read online here http://www.premeditatedparenting.net/downloads/80_the_duties_of_parents_j_c_ryle.pdf
This section impacted me and I wanted to share it here. We too often get wrapped up in the here, the now and the temporary. Be encouraged to think
what affect us eternally. We will live much longer on the other side of our 80-100 year old lives, let's prepare for that time in the short time we have now!
Here is the excerpt:
Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you love them, think often of their souls. No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests. No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die. The world, with all its glory, shall pass away; the hills shall melt; the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll; the sun shall cease to shine. But the spirit which dwells in those little creatures, whom you love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on you.
This is the thought that should be uppermost on your mind in all you do for your children. In every step you take about them, in every plan, and scheme, and arrangement that concerns them, do not leave out that mighty question, "How will this affect their souls?"
Soul love is the soul of all love. To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look to, and this life the only season for happiness to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has but one world to look to, and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy,. that the chief end of his life is the salvation of his soul.
A true Christian must be no slave to fashion, if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of a doubtful tendency, merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children's souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short, the fashion of this world passes away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth, for God, rather than for man, - he is the parent that will be called wise at last.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting this! Its wise counsel. Sadly many Christian parents raise their children no different then the world would, and then wonder why they choose to follow the world's morals and philosophies! Everything matters, our minds are precious and impressionable, but especially at young ages. Our job as a parent is to guard this avenue!
Keep up your blogging I enjoy each post!
Marta, Thanks for the encouragement! I love my job as a mom and see it as a heavy responsability! We only get one crack at it too.
We need to aborb our little sponges with the word of God. They may not fully understand it now but later when they need it, the Holy Spirit will bring it up in their mind and then their hearts will understand.
"I have hidden your word in my heart that I may not sin against you." Psalm 119:11
This sounds like another blog I may have to write!
Blessings!
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