Our Children

Yesterday I posted a comment on Facebook about going over family photos as a child. I knew of the people in this photo because my Dad showed it to me and talked about them. The man in the upper right corner is his father. The man in the lower left is his grandfather. The others are my Dad’s aunts and uncles – yes, even the older looking woman on the middle right, from her father’s first marriage, before the Civil War. Think I feel old now?

I know stories about each one of the people in that photo. One died when struck by lightning – inside his home, reading a letter by the fireplace. The girl on the middle left died young, leaving a daughter who never knew her mother. Yes, I’ve shared their names and their stories with my own children. Is that important? Not really.

What is important is what God wants taught to our children:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7 KJV)

Every parent on this planet teaches their children what they believe about God. Some by following the above verses and teaching diligently, talking about their own belief in God. Others teach by example, ignoring God or teaching that He does not exist.

One single mother I know stated that someday she will take her son to church, when he’s old enough to understand. Another family is divided in their beliefs and decided not to tell their children how they see God out of respect for each other’s beliefs. In both instances the children have learned that God is not important.

This teaching of children was of sufficient biblical importance that it was repeated just a few chapters later:

And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: (Deuteronomy 11:19-20 KJV)

Christ shared the importance of a child’s faith – and the consequences for offending them:

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matthew 18:5-7 KJV)

We are responsible for what we teach our children, and our children’s children. If we have failed, today is the right time to set that right.