Train Up Tuesday: Teaching Our Children to do "Good" Things

I’m currently in a weekly small group of women studying Beth Moore’s “Esther: It’s Tough Being a Woman.” In our homework for this week, Beth referenced an article by Laura Fraser entitled “My So-Called Genius.” In it, Laura speaks of the many accolades she received as a child genius and the “forecasts” of what she’d become. She also speaks of how these predictions actually ended up hindering her and the success that she expected because “Perfectionists always lose.” In her words, “If your identity is wrapped in the magnificent things you’re destined to achieve - as a great writer, musician, scientist, politician, chef - the thought that you might produce something mediocre can be devastating.”

Beth Moore breaks it down for us by saying, “Couldn’t the craving to do something great keep us from doing something good?”

I’m so thankful for having come across this study at this time. For sometime now, I have wrestled with the notion that as Christians, we should be seeking to do something “GREAT” for God. And, as a result, I can testify in my own life that I haven’t “always been where I am.” Meaning, I’ve looked for the “next big thing” I’m supposed to do. But in the last couple of years, God has shown me that I’ve missed so much in overlooking the day-to-day kingdom work for the “change the world” variety of opportunities that I suppose I thought were just going to fall from the sky and in front of me.

Guess what. Good things require hard work, right now. Not just later when a huge opportunity presents itself (if it ever does).

This is something we have to instill in our little ones now. In this “instant fame” society we now live in, it won’t be an easy task. Even in church culture we are hearing so much about how the next generation can be “world changers” and rarely is that message paired with the “small kingdom work” that we spoke of last week.

I also know most of us are learning balance in what is and isn’t appropriate “praise” for our children. I don’t know about you, but I remember public programming children’s shows from when I was a kid telling me I could be ANYTHING I wanted to be. They failed to tell me the work that was involved. Furthermore, they failed to tell me that I could only successfully AND happily be only what God wanted and enabled me to be if I was obedient and diligent. It’s a very simple message, but I think that may be how we need to train our children - do the good things God wants us all to do.

So what about those great things that we desire for our children to accomplish in life? Well, to close, I again quote Beth Moore, “Every one of us who embraces the glory of God as our purpose will end up doing great things precisely because we do God-things. His holy had resting on the least act renders the ordinary extraordinary.”

Much love and encouragement,

Ashlie