Being Worthy of Imitation February 22, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , trackbackJoe,
Your last post definitely got me thinking about living before our children in a way that makes us trustworthy. If we live in such a way, I believe they will also think we are worth imitating. Paul calls us to imitate him as He imitated Christ. I think we as parents should be able to tell our children to imitate us as we imitate Christ as well.
How do we become people that are to be imitated? Ultimately, the question becomes how do we become like Jesus? This brought me back to a book you and I recently finished reading by Dallas Willard called “The Spirit of the Disciplines”. In it, Willard argues that we do no act like Jesus by trying to make the decision Jesus would make “in the moment”, but by practicing the disciplines he made a part of His life.
Willard used the example of a child trying to emulate a professional athlete. The child may go out and buy all the same gear or try to imitate a certain technique in the athlete’s style of play. But if the child does not engage in the same day-to-day discipline of the athlete, true greatness cannot be achieved.
So we cannot just look to act the right way in front of our children in the moment–in order to be worth imitating. Our conduct must be an overflow of the disciplines we have in our life that cause us to act like Jesus in every moment of our lives. I know one of the most important ways these disciplines come in for me as a mother is having time with Jesus first thing in the morning. I need to be up before the children in a time of quietness and solitude to read the Word and pray. I have described before that this is like getting on my battle gear for the day. If my heart is not happy in God to begin the day, I feel like I am entering the war with no protective armor. God has been gracious to grant me grace to rise early (usually at 5am) to have that quiet time before the kids are up around 7am. Even on days when I am not feeling well or am especially tired, when I have made an effort to give even 20 minutes to God, the effort has been blessed. On those few days when I have let myself sleep and have gotten up with the kids, I have seen that I have not acted in a way that is worth imitating. As we have said so many times before, we cannot give what we do not possess.
I am thankful that our home is built upon the conviction that the private disciplines of prayer and reading the Word must be the first order of business in the day. God has granted you wisdom to encourage me to this end! And I pray these disciplines would make us two parents that our children would trust and want to imitate.
Seeking Him early and privately with you,
Erin
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