With the hustle and bustle of the holidays behind us, now is the perfect time to buckle down and set our priorities in order. I’m sure many of you experience what we experience: a hectic schedule of running around to a host of events with friends, family, and church—normal routines all but forgotten. Nap schedules, school schedules, regular chore responsibilities, and even family devotional times all suffer some disarray during the busy season with all the traveling and outings. Likewise, the flood of gifts from well-intentioned family members can at times shift our focus away from Christ (the Reason for the season) and toward materialism.
We find that the wind-down after the holidays is always the perfect time for refocus and reestablishment of longstanding priorities. For us, the New Year is also a time of reflection and evaluation of those priorities. Cindy and I discuss what we have accomplished in the year—how the children are doing, how we are doing, our ministry, our personal finances, work—all the different aspects of our household. We talk about what is working and what is not. We see how reality measures up with our expectations—both long and short-term. We decide if changes are needed and discuss what those changes should be. We praise God for the successes and grow wiser from the failures. Nothing is wasted as we press on to be the best parents, spouses, and Christians we can be.
Over the years, one area that has continued to be of utmost importance to us is how we are meeting our Biblical responsibilities in raising our children. We ask ourselves some tough questions:
These are the standards God sets for us, and we try to take our responsibility seriously. Are we perfect? Absolutely not! That’s why we need to introspectively search out these things; we want to make sure that we are putting in our best effort in our high calling as parents and as followers of Christ. As we identify any areas of weakness, we can proactively plan on how to make progress in our spiritual growth.
I encourage you to also have these discussions with your spouse. Ask yourself those tough questions. Determine if you are doing everything you can do. If God convicts you that you should be doing more, seek His guidance and make this year the year you will put forth your absolute best efforts in imparting God’s Word to your children’s hearts.
Personally, we have discovered that proactive teaching during family devotional times greatly reduces the frequency and seriousness of day-to-day disciplinary events. We have likewise found that it is those real-time “teachable moments” that allow God’s Word to travel the 18 inches from the children’s minds to their hearts. Reading the Word is necessary, but teaching the Word during real-life situations has a much more lasting effect.
One tool that has been extremely helpful for us in this area is a binder of character-themed Bible verses. These verses have become vital for both leading family devotional times and capturing those real-time discipleship opportunities, or “teachable moments.” If you recognize a need for some over-haul in this area (and who doesn’t?), we have recently compiled these themed verses in a 150+ page binder, with a thorough table of contents and index for easy use. (Visit here if you wish to learn more.) Values-Driven Discipleship: Biblical Instruction and Character Training Manual could be the blessing your family needs to shore up this all-important area in your home. It has blessed ours! But please, by all means, continue to fulfill the sacred trust God has given you and resolve, in this new year, to actively disciple your children.