Children are a gift. To parent like Christ.

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him.  ~ Psalm 127:3 (NLT)

I had a discussion earlier this week with someone about how their children have interupted and constantly made difficult their walk with Christ because the children dont act very Christ like sometime... This has been on my heart, it is something that I too am guilty of time to time..most likley its been day to day.  How very easy it is to get angry with our children for being..well children, teenagers, whatever.  How when they are first born we are constantly trying to get them to talk and walk but how alot of the time parents eventually find themselves telling their children to sit down and shut up. 

I am finding it very hard to believe that a gift from the Creator of the universe Himself was given to parents to become a hinderance, an annoyance, or a dissapointment.


He gave us children to love them. 
He gave us children to build generations of followers of Christ. 
To save the lost
To heal the sick.


How can we do that, I speak out to us Christian parents, if we constantly complain about how awful our children are? 


How can we encourage them that they are loved, beautiful creations, when they hear us complain about how much we dislike being their parents?


We all have these days.  I have these days, where Im like "seriously?"  Where I want to just throw in the towel.  Where Im so fed up with how the day is progressing I want to, and generally do moan and groan and woe is me. 


But I laid in bed tonight and this thought of how on earth can these gifts from God be bad? 
Are we rasing our children the way Christ Himself would?  Because to follow Him is to also represent Him.  To allow His Spirit to guide us even in how to handle the three year old throwing a tantrum over not being allowed any more peanut butter. 


Jesus told those around Him to let the little children come to Him. 
We have to let the children come to us. 
We have to let the children come to us, and see Christ through us, so they know how even Christ would react when they would run to Him. 


We need the next generation to be running to Him. We need to be showing them what He looks like. 
We need to represent Him.  This is not just a job for our amazing Sunday school teachers around the world.  Its for the parents.


I have taken a long hard look at the past seven and so years I have been a parent.  A mother to a seven and a half year old daughter, five and three year old boys and another beautiful pink blessing on the way.  I have failed almost daily at representing Christ as a parent.  But it doesn't mean that Gods mercy cant pour out on me tomorrow, even right now.  That I can't pray and call out to Him in each and every single moment from here on in to help me, raise my children with the leading of His Spirit. 

So that they too will do the same for their children.