Covering All Bases March 30, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , trackbackJoe,
Thank you once again for the reminder of the gospel needing to be the center of all that we do. God is certainly bringing that to light in a number of different areas in our lives right now!
I wanted to share a little bit about something else God has been doing in our lives lately. both of us have recently come up with a much more concrete and succinct prayer plan. We both had some idea of what we wanted to pray for before, but now we actually have it laid out what our daily prayer and weekly prayers will be. Each day has it designated categories to pray for and we also keep a list of specific prayer requests to be lifting up for people. This has been a huge blessing to me, because although I cannot pray for everything every single day, I can feel confident that there is nothing slipping through the cracks that won’t go for weeks without being prayed for.
I was thinking how this can relate to parenting as well. So often I get so concentrated on training and disciplining Abby in a certain area, that the other areas seem to slip through the cracks. I may be concentrated on her giving an immediate “yes”, but am letting her get away with whining or something else.
In this regard, I think it is helpful for parents to sit down and have a “child plan”. You can pray an talk about the weaknesses and strength of each child and then come up with a plan for how to shepherd them into loving Jesus more in those areas of weakness. Obviously each child is going to have many areas of weakness (as we all do!). So you can’t come up with 50 of them. but I know for myself, I see 3-4 areas in my own life that I struggle continually with sin, and those are the main areas I focus in on prayer and practice for myself. In the same way, I think it is helpful to focus in on 3-4 areas in our children’s lives where there is habitual sin. And then come up with a plan for how that will be trained and disciplined.
It is helpful to re-evaluate this list every few months. See how God is answering prayer in these areas. See ways that your training and disciplining need to be adjusted. And maybe see new areas of sin that are popping up and need to be corrected, while other areas may not need to addressed as much anymore. Let’s learn to be students of our children’s behaviors so we are not focusing in on one area, while letting another area of sin completing slide by.
Seeking to parent in all areas of our children’s lives,
Erin
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