Why Children Need a Firm Foundation
Foundation Check
How many times have you heard a parent utter something similar to this?
I’m doing the best I can as a parent. It’s not like my kid came with an owner’s manual.
While many of us accept that statement as truth, if we do a little digging, we will find that Deuteronomy 6:1–9 actually does give us a blueprint for what our family life should look like.
For the sake of time, let’s just focus on verses 6–7 of the passage.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
If we pause for a moment and just think about the last week alone, there’s a good chance that our conversations as a family had very little to do with God and much more to do with homework, extracurricular activities, and trying to manage out of control schedules.
As a result, instead of our families reflecting Deuteronomy 6, they are more likely to be characterized by Mark 4:18–19, which declares:
Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke out the word, making it unfruitful.
The result of this misalignment between what is commanded and the way we actually conduct family life is that everything quickly becomes out of balance, and our families begin to look and act less like God and more like the world.
We cram things into our schedules that we believe will prepare our children for future success while we push our family time with God further in the background until it becomes almost non-existent. We feed our children a steady diet of academics, athletics, fine arts, and general entertainment while they are starving for the Word of God. We convince ourselves that we are setting them up for a great future while in reality, we are all but assuring their failure in the things that really matter.
We forget the fact that fame and wealth tend to be elusive and that even worldly success is filled with temptations and pitfalls that our children will have to be prepared to navigate.
In a moment of temptation, it will not be what the elite athlete learned at sports camps over the years that will prevent him from making a poor choice that will have severe consequences for years to come. It will be the time he spent learning Scriptures to help him combat the attacks of Satan.
When feelings of defeat and worthlessness overwhelm the young starlet, it will not be what hours of acting lessons taught her that keeps her from falling deeper into despair. It will be knowing that her identity is in Christ and that He thought she was valuable enough to give His own life for.
When the pressures of life drive the young couple to their breaking point, it won’t be all of the praise they received when they were king and queen of the prom that will get them through. It will be the fact that they placed Christ at the very center of their lives and God as the head of their marriage.
Whether we realize it or not, we are pouring our children’s foundations right now. If the majority of what we pour in is based on wordy values, our children are going to end up with a worldly foundation (sometimes referred to as sand). If we are pouring in values based on the Word of God, our children are going to have a godly foundation(sometimes referred to as rock).
This should give us pause and challenge us to rethink our priorities, especially as we read the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:24–27:
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
Let’s commit to patterning our families after Deuteronomy 6. Let’s start pouring in the Word of God, while starving out the world. Let’s work toward building strong, rocky foundations for our children. Their very survival depends on it.
For additional information about faith and family, please visit my Dawn Benson Jones website.
