Parenting Tip #8 – Speak into your Children
Psalm 127:3
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
You have the power to speak life, faith, and hope into your child’s heart. Choose words that reflect God’s love and truth—and watch how He uses them to shape their future.
Parenting Tip:
recently interviewed Melissa Dougherty, who wrote the book Happy Lies. It was a very interesting interview https://educateforlife.org/
It’s this idea that we can somehow speak reality into existence by constantly saying positive things, and that we shouldn’t say anything even slightly negative for fear that we will “manifest” bad results. The phrase “Don’t jinx it” is a version of this thinking that has crept its way into the lingo and thinking of teenagers and even adults. It’s very popular in some churches and among positive thinking gurus in the secular world.
And while God does call us to be hopeful about the fact of eternal life through Jesus, Jesus certainly didn’t shy away from talking about hell, judgment, and God’s wrath. He also emphasized that Christians should expect to face conflict and even persecution with others when we follow Jesus.
Sometimes, when raising our children, we might wrestle with encouraging our children to be optimistic versus being realistic. Biblically, I believe God is calling us to be both realistic and optimistic, and I don’t think those are mutually exclusive.
Recently, on our way home from church, my son, who just graduated from high school, was bemoaning the fact of how hard he now has to work with a full time job and attending college. My wife and I didn’t sugar coat or give him any false hope about what the next four years of his life are going to entail, or the fact that getting married and having kids doesn’t make it any easier. But we did give him the hope that following Jesus, working hard, and living by the principles outlined in God’s Word leads to joy, contentment, and fulfillment.
We give life to our children when we give them the full counsel of God, the hard stuff, and the exciting fun stuff. This sets them up with an accurate expectation of what life might be like, and that we live in a broken world, but we have the hope of eternal life when we follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Apologetics Defense of the Biblical Worldview
Child: If God loves me, why do I feel like I’m not good enough sometimes?
Parent: That’s a very honest and important question. The Bible tells us in Psalm 139 that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Our worth doesn’t come from how we feel or what others say or even what we do—it comes from being created and loved by God. Sometimes our feelings don’t tell the truth, but God’s Word always does. You are deeply loved and eternally valuable not because of what you do but because of who you are, a child of God made in his image who he considered worthy of Jesus dying for. You are priceless!
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