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Godly Character in Our ChildrenKim Stilwell is a guest writer on Anne's Homey Place. We hope that her words will encourage you as much as they have our family! Next to my children accepting Christ as their Savior, the thing I desire most for them is that they develop godly character. This is hard to find in our world today. Many people have the "if it feels good, do it" idea. Our society today seems far more concerned about their own individual "rights" then they do about living to glorify God. Teaching our children to have a character that pleases the Lord is not easy. It requires a lot of time. Our children are ages eleven, eight, six, five and two. In each of the children there are character issues that we have worked on with them for years. There is a reason we have our children in our home for so many years. Training them in the things of the Lord takes time. My husband and I want our children to be kind, to be honest, to put others first, to be diligent in their school work and chores, to not return evil for evil, to have a servant' heart, to remain pure and keep their bodies for their spouse alone, to not lash out in anger, to respect authority and so many other godly traits. It is not easy to instill these character traits into our children (or ourselves for that matter) but it is rewarding and, more importantly it is obedient to the Lord. There are several ways to teach our children these biblical truths. 1. PRAY! This is probably the most important one of all. We should pray daily for our children and pray specifically for them about the areas that they struggle in, whether it be lying or hitting their sibling or talking back to their parents. 2. Be an example. Often I see my character struggles in the life of my children. On days that I am feeling impatient with the children, they are impatient with each other. I worry and wonder why one of my sons is such a worrier. Ouch! I need to be an example to them on someone who loves Christ should live. My husband and I try to teach kindness being a good friend to others. We try to teach respect for others by being respectful. One thing we do to teach respect to those older than themselves, is to have our children address adults as Mr., Mrs., or Miss. In fact, I often address adults in that manner in front of my children, even if I normally call them by their first name. 3. Correct them when they sin. I should not look the other way when I see my son moves his piece ahead a space in a game when he thinks no one is watching. There should be a consequence for sin. This is an area in parenting that I really struggle. I would much rather spend time playing, working, reading and cuddling with my children and forget all about the "correction" aspect of it. However, I have learned, from personal experience and, most importantly, from God's Word, that I must correct them when they sin. If I fail to do so, I am disobedient to the Lord. Correcting children when they sin is a very time consuming thing to do. When I have disciplined and corrected the same child ten times in one day for hitting his brother, I think, "Is this even working?". To be encouraged, though, all I have to do is to look at our oldest two children. We are seeing the "fruits of our labor" with them and, though they still have character issues to deal with, they have learned to be obedient most of the time.4. Read the Bible to them. Where better to find our how to live in a way that please God then in His Word? We have family devotions several times a week. We also listen to the Bible on cassette at lunch time. We help our children with memory verses. We have only one son that is old enough to read but we encourage him to have his personal Bible reading time. We let our children see us reading the Bible. 5. Point out godly character traits in others. The night before our last child was born, a family in our church brought a meal to us to put in the freezer so that my family could eat this while I was in the hospital. We used this as an opportunity to tell our children how kind this family had been to us and how we should be kind to others as well. There is a man in our church who, Sunday after Sunday, stands at the church door and opens the door for the rest of us. This man has recently gone through a very difficult time in his own life and could have easily stopped doing this ministry and no one would have thought badly of him for it. Yet he continues to be "other's oriented" and serve the rest of us in this manner. We have talked about this man's "servant's heart" with our children and encouraged them to put others first as well. My husband and I want to encourage our children to minister to others out of love for the Lord and not out of pride. 6. Explain to them why we should have a godly character. The reason we want to be kind, have a servant's heart, be honest and all those other godly virtues, is not so that others will think more highly of us. It is not to gain the respect of others. It is not to have a more peaceful life. Those are all side benefits. The reason we should want to live in a Biblical manner is because, after all Christ has done for us, the very least we can do is to live in a way that pleases him. My love for Christ should be so great that I do not want to do anything to displease Him. That should be our greatest motivation of all. If you feel it would be an encouragement or a blessing to someone, you have the Stilwell's permission to forward this article in its entirety. They just ask that you include this note at the bottom of the article with their name and e-mail address (Jeff and Kim Stilwell, jkstilwell@juno.com) in case someone wishes to contact them. Thank you.
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