Parenting Tips from a Survivor—Part 10

By Chuck Gartman

Posted December 16, 2005

“What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying” is the theme for last month’s and this month’s articles.

Last month’s article focused on the personal part of modeling, and this month is more practical. Our teenagers need to see that what we talk about and instruct them about the Christian life actually plays out in the way we “do” our lives. Below are listed a few things that will give evidence of this fact. The list is not exhaustive, but it does give a good idea of the direction that we parents need to be going if our talk will be verified by our walk.

• A personal devotional life . Nothing will have more importance than this aspect of our Christian life. Our participation in personal worship has a four-fold purpose: 1) To maintain the fellowship of our relationship with God; 2) To build spiritual strength; 3) To sensitize ourselves to God’s leadership in our lives; and finally, so that we can lead our families in that same direction. If we are going to lead them in the direction of a deeper relationship with the Lord, we must be on that road as well.

• Faithful Worship. In today’s world it is often very easy to neglect this important part of our lives. Having a lifestyle of faithful corporate worship will indicate to our teens that we believe it is important. Hebrews 10:25 instructs us not to neglect being together as Christians in worship.

• Fellowship with other adults. If we are not careful we can substitute time with our children by spending it with other adults. That is a trap, but we must have time together with other Christian adults to order to be fed spiritually and to be stretched in our relationship with the Lord.

• Bible Study. Is there a time in your life when you are actually studying, memorizing, or meditating on God’s Word for your own personal edification? If not, how can we expect our children to desire to spend time in God’s Word!

• Family. Our teens and their friends need to be able to see that we feel our families are important. How we spend our time, money, and energy related to family life will communicate volumes in this regard.

• Quality of Life. There ought to be an observable difference in the way we “do” our lives. One of the great struggles is how we handle money, the kind of lifestyle we live, the language we use with each other, the ways in which we use our gifts/abilities and the way we treat each other in public as well as in private.

In a God-directed life we will not only have a strong foundation theologically (what we believe) but we will also have a strong foundation practically (how we actually live). We are dependent on God for both.