Christian Parenting Series
Part 3, Releasing Steadfast Children |
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PREPARING
TO
RELEASE
A
STEADFAST
CHILD
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The intense process of developing relationship while Parenting Young Children and Discipling Reasoning Children yields a bountiful harvest of steadfast young people, free to walk with the Lord in liberty.
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Steadfast
- Fixed; firm; firmly fixed or established
- Constant; firm; resolute; not fickle or wavering
- Steady
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Proactive and grace-based parenting set the stage for the harvest of firmly established young people. The fruit of their lives blesses the Lord, blesses their parents, and blesses themselves.
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Submission:
willingly coming under others
to release
them to love.
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A young person who has experienced the focused, non-artificial, intense environment of submitting to and serving others at home is prepared to submit to and serve others outside of the home.
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Instead of following the crowd, the steadfast young person who knows the Lord and His ways will
- be sensitive to the Lord’s step-by-step leading (emotions)
- see the Lord’s marvelous power as he grows in knowledge (mind)
- accept the Lord’s loving Hand in all aspects of his life and submit to Him (will)
When his heart is yielded to the Lordship of Christ, he will not
- be governed by his emotional outbursts; rather, his emotions will be an expression of God’s love and compassion which fill him as well as a way he discerns what God is teaching him (emotions)
- be puffed up about the knowledge he has attained or is attaining; rather, he will see God as the author of all knowledge and desire to tap into that in order to benefit others (mind)
- demand his own way; rather, he will be satisfied with how the Lord directs his life, submitting cheerfully to the Lord with hopeful expectation in what He will reveal as the next step for this young person’s unique life (will)
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CHANGING
PARENT /
CHILD
RELATIONSHIP
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As parents see these aspects of a young person’s heart come to fruition, they can rejoice together with their steadfast child:
- Parenting and discipling change to mentoring, as the young person begins to wisely select other mentors for his life as well.
- Parents who have developed relationship with their child throughout his growing-up years will continue to learn from him, not only about the knowledge he is attaining but also about the depth of his walk with the Lord.
- The parent-young adult conversations begin to focus on what God is doing directly in the child’s life, rather than what God is doing through mom’s life or dad’s life in the life of the child.
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STEWARDING
MY
CHILD ~
RELEASING
HIS
CHILD
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The gradual process of releasing a child who has valued the tool of home and enjoyed the relationship-building with parents and siblings throughout his years is not burdensome or frightening for the parents or the child. In fact, it is joyous!
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We parents are only stewards of our children’s lives.
Will we be faithful to the One Who is faithful to us?
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Then one day,
parents will know that their child is no longer their child
whose life they steward
but that their child is now
fully His child.
Their parenting and discipling is now carried out fully by the Spirit of God directly in the young person’s life, just as it was meant to be from the day of that child’s birth.
Will we learn from Him how to parent and disciple our children
the way He parents and disciples us,
so that we can release them with confidence
in the Lord’s work in both our child’s life and our own?
For we have become partakers of Christ,
if we hold the beginning of our assurance steadfast
unto the end.
~Hebrews 3:14
Other topics in this parenting series:
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