By David ReayTuesday 17 Sep 2019LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 2 minutes
Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man
are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. (NLT)
The great challenge of raising children is that we embark on a gradual journey from holding them tightly to us to releasing them from our hold on them. When very young, parents have to watch their children and lovingly control them. As they grow older, parents have to watch from a greater distance and surrender control. Even to the point of watching them make mistakes, even to the point of having their hearts broken.
Our children are on loan to us from God. They are treasured guests who stay a while and hopefully grow wiser and stronger in their time with us. And then we allow them to find their freedom, perhaps in ways that cause us to shake our heads in sadness. Parents come to learn that caring is not controlling, that loving entails letting go. And yet, in the deepest recesses of our hearts we do not, in another sense, ever really let go.
It has been said that wise parents give their children two necessary things: roots and wings. Strong foundations and individual freedom. Finding that balance, and living contentedly in it, is at the heart of godly parenting. And it is only possible to find by flinging ourselves onto our God who offers us both roots and wings.
Blessings
David