God’s Word and Parenting

When it comes to parenting, there are a plethora of verses that I can rely on to help me learn and grow as a mother.  But the other day the Lord revealed to me that maybe I was being a little selfish with my Scriptural learning.

The selfishness comes in this way – I don’t share a lot of my verses with my children.  Oh, don’t get me wrong – my children memorize Scripture regularly.  The really enjoy memorizing and are quite good at it!  They also read the Bible for themselves and have daily devotional times.  So, I’m not worried about my children not learning the Word.

What hit me was the realization that when I instruct and discipline them as a result of something God’s taught me through His Word, it might help to go ahead and teach them that verse.  It shouldn’t just be that they take my instruction and discipline at face value.  They need to know it comes from God’s Word!  “Because God said so” carries a lot more weight than “because I said so!”

When I was in college, every time I came across a verse that I really wanted to remember, I’d take a piece of posterboard, cut it in half, neatly write the verse on it and then decorate around it.  I’m not artistic by nature, but somehow decorating those posters with colorful marker drawings came quite easily!  Using sticky tack, I’d then hang the posters up on the walls of my dorm room.

How much fun would that be around the house?  I could write out verses, let the kids decorate around them, and hang them up around the house.  True, it wouldn’t be quite as fashion-friendly as framed artwork and decorative wall-hangings, but it sure would be a lot more useful!  Will you join me?  Let’s decorate our homes with the Word of God – and in doing so provide an incredible reminder to ourselves and to our children of what parenting God’s way looks like!

Need a couple of verses to start with?  Try these two…

How can a young man keep his way pure?  By keeping it according to Your word.  Psalms 119:9 (NASB)

Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, that I may reply to him who reproaches me. Prov 27:11 (NASB)