Parenting Series 1: Of Dedication…
There has been a big gap in the way children have been or are being raised today.
Let me start by saying it’s one thing to be told it’s another thing to be taught !
Many people have been raised in the understanding of parents telling them “do as I say, not as I do!
This has caused a huge indifference and bias towards parenting patterns that have transcended from generation to generation not because there is no wisdom to share but because of the failure to recognize the importance of the wisdom imparted on children as they look up to their parents both physical and spiritual. When the Bible says,
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6
It doesn’t say tell or narrate or jazz a child the way they should go it says train.. the Hebrew word for train is ‘chanaq’ which means to narrow, discipline and dedicate to the end that Even when the child grows he is able to walk in the right patterns and transfer them to the next generation.
Many physical and spiritual parents walk through the patterns of parenthood due to obligation and duty forgetting that they are putting the destinies of people and keeping a cycle of frustrated potential for generations to come simply because they haven’t taken time to search out the principles of raising their children.
One of these is in the meaning of chanaq which is to dedicate. Parents ought to take the first step of sowing the right seed into their children through dedicating them to God.
This is very fundamental to the spirit of the child for with this step, you have allowed the Spirit of God to have lead in the ways that your child is to be taught. That’s why the Bible says that
And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children. -Isaiah 54:13
God will not teach that which you have not let Him to that’s why even when His only Son Jesus Christ was born into the flesh by Mary, they (as physical parents) had to take him to the temple to dedicate Him to God!
I don’t think if Mary was in her sense would dedicate God Himself to God!
God was placing a principle and pattern for the fathers and mothers reading this today!
Remember, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: -2 Timothy 3:16.
Children that are dedicated to God have great peace! The dedication of children (I repeat , both spiritual and biological) can be through prayer! As you pray, speak greatness into the life of your child(ren),
speak success, speak grace, speak abundance, speak health, in that way you’re training up your child in the way he should go and even when he’s old he will not depart from it!