Suppose you get home from grocery shopping and discover your six-year-old is eating candy you didn’t buy. It might be tempting to just scold him, send him to his room, and let it go at that. After all, it’s only worth a dollar, and you’re tired. But you’d miss an opportunity to turn this “miss” into a second chance.
It would be better to take away any uneaten candy, put your little shoplifter back in the car, drive to the grocery store, hunt up the manager, and tell your kid to apologize. Pay for the candy and deduct it from the child’s allowance. Then, if the culprit is truly sorry, be sure to express your forgiveness—and God’s forgiveness, too.
You’ve just boxed out the opposition and put your kid in position to rightly rebound. Because there will come another time in that grocery store or when he’s passing a coveted pair of Nikes or—who knows?
The Bible tells us that parents have the primary responsibility for the spiritual development of our children. And nowhere is the job given only to mothers and grandmothers. As Moses told the people of Israel, “Repeat [the command of God] again and again to your children” (Deut. 6:7). Why not begin today?
adapted from Men of Integrity Devotional Bible with devotionals by the editors of Men of Integrity magazine (Christianity Today, Intl), Tyndale House Publishers (2002), p 391
