Which Way Did They Go? (Part 2)
Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
Last week, we covered three of the ways we often go about raising our kids . . . My Way, Your Way and Their Way. Today, I want to talk about the fourth way . . . His Way
I know what you’re thinking . . . Kevin, of course you’re going to write this. We should raise our kids God’s way. Sounds so easy, right? Homeschool them . . . remove them from the dangers of the real world . . . bring them (or drag them) to church . . . wrap them in bubble wrap . . . send them to a Christian college . . . move them back into the basement . . . need I continue?
Let’s go back to Proverbs 22:6 for a moment. In, Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, Kristen Welch points out how this verse assures us as parents that “our responsibility is to faithfully do our part to explain the truth and the rest is up to our child.” Our children have to make the choice to follow Jesus and then we have to trust God will continue to pursue them. We want them to listen to us and avoid the pain we can see coming, but Welch reminds us to remember “God often uses mistakes, wayward choices, and brokenness to bring redemption” just like He did in our own lives.
My wife and I experienced this when we left our 11-year-old at his first sleep-away camp. While we both recognize that this is the first of many steps in ‘letting go’ of him, it didn’t make it any easier. We spent our nights that week refreshing the camp website hoping to see his smiling face in the pictures the camp posts daily . . . for all the parents just like us. And with the house a little more quiet than usual, we had to remind ourselves that our kids are not our own . . . they are a gift from Him entrusted to us for a season.
His Way is really a combination of My Way, Your Way and Their Way. It’s about good and bad choices . . . winning and losing . . . freedom and punishment. It’s about remembering that just like us, our kids have been exercising free will since birth . . . and at some point, we have to let them go so God can grab a hold of them.
If Andy Andrews is correct and we are trying to raise children that become great adults, it involves our best instruction, their best judgement and complete faith that they are in the careful hands of their Heavenly Father.
So, what about you.. Is it time for you to let go?
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