My son is quickly approaching his second birthday and has discovered that wonderful word "no". How much I despise hearing that, especially from my 24 lbs child. Really? You're standing there with your diaper sagging 3/4 of the way to the floor and you run away from me repeatedly saying "no, no, no, no" when I try to change your diaper, something that would quickly make your life so much better. The struggle for obedience begins.
I've heard the stories of the "terrible twos" and all that comes with the stage of learning independence. The fight has begun to teach our son the lesson and importance of obedience, shaping his very strong, persistent will into a strong willed, but obedient child. Every parent has to go through this time of life, we all have to face the struggles of instructing our child and disciplining our child to teach the necessity of obedience, the moral value of listening to their parents and doing as they say. I hate that my sweet baby boy is becoming independent, strong willed, and, at times, obstinate. I miss the days of sweet smiles and cuddles, now replaced with a toddler making his own choices and making it known to all what he does and, more often, does NOT want to do. Siiiggghhhh....
Obedience is an important lesson for our children to learn and one that, sadly, some parents just refuse to teach. As teaching theories show, there are different ways that we can teach and different ways that people learn, i.e. auditory, visual, and tactile, those who learn by hearing, seeing, and doing. We, as parents, most often do well at teaching our children to obey and the importance of such, but how well do we model that lesson? Even as I write this the ole saying is playing in my head, "monkey see, monkey do."
We teach, or should be teaching our children, obedience to authority and to us as parents, but we also have the responsibility of teaching our children the necessity of obeying God and what He desires. That's more than the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, but in every area, through Scripture and through the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit. This is a lesson that we often teach verbally but do we always model obedience to God in our own life? It's usually easy to obey the Bible, don't kill, don't steal (even on your taxes!), don't covet, etc., but how are we at modeling complete obedience to the voice of the Holy Spirit? I remember multiple times during my life as a child and teenager not wanting to ask my parents for permission to do something or for their desire on a certain topic for fear of what they might say. If they said it, I'd have to obey it, so best not ask. How often do we have the same attitude with God? "Well, He's probably gonna say that I should give $X.XX or that I shouldn't buy this, so best not to ask." I know you've been there, because I have to. We fail to ask permission or God's heart on a matter for fear of what His answer might be, and we are sinning then if we don't obey. Or we don't REALLY pray about something because we don't wanna know what God has to say, because we want something specific already. I'll admit, as a former missionary and pastor, I don't like asking what God wants sometimes because I'm afraid of the answer. I don't want to HAVE to obey, so I just don't ask. I know, I've just shattered some of y'alls view of me.
For instance, I remember in college there was a cute girl that I really wanted to date. She was a sweet girl, loved Jesus, but not called into full-time ministry. I really didn't want to ask God what He wanted, because I had an inkling He would say no. Finally, one day in chapel, I prayed and asked God what He thought. He said, "No." I didn't wanna take it so started to get up. Suddenly, a football player (you know you always thought the jocks were the MOST spiritual, note the sarcasm) comes over to me, someone I really didn't know. He said, "I was praying and felt like God wanted me to tell you something. It's just one word, 'No.'" Yeah, then I had to obey.
Our children learn by watching our lives and obedience is something that they need to see in us. Radical obedience to God is a lesson we need to learn and model for our children. They need to see that we are consistently seeking His face and obeying His voice. We need to share our spiritual journey with them, allow them to see us in conversation with the Father, sharing with them what He says and then obeying His voice. Through our lives they can learn that obeying God is a blessing, they can learn the importance of asking God's will in every area of our lives and seeing that we are completely obedient and submissive to His will. Then when we teach them that the same lesson applies to our relationship with them as parents and children, the lesson easily transfers. They will learn spiritual obedience through learning to obey our instructions and by watching us model obedience for them. It's easy to get in the parent mode of teaching and instructing our children and forget to model the same lessons in our own lives.
"Because monkey see, monkey do, some little monkey may be watching you. So always do what you should do, don't monkey around!"
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