SPENDING MORE TIME WITH CHILDREN
Bible: Psalm 128: 1-6
Main Verse: PSALM 128: 3 – Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
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– God has used the Bible to teach us how to live a true Christian life. We should relate Bible’s subjects with reality to understand God’s teachings with clarity.
– We all understand that family is the most important foundation of a society. When the family is happy and morally stable, their society will be safe and the nation will be prosperous. Parents should spend more time with their children to build up a good relationship, along with a warm and welcome home.
– One of the grave mistakes that parents often make is thinking children doesn’t have any stress. A study of more than 2,000 children in Quebec by the national Research Laboratory for Mental Health of Adults and Youths has proved otherwise.
– The Bible tells us that children show their behavior from the early ages of their life and we as parents must pay attention to them:
PROVERBS 20: 11 – Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.
– In their study about children with depression, the Free University of Berlin concluded that ‘the development of depression is mostly due to their social environment. The primary factors in depressive illnesses are the loss of a parent, a disharmonious relationship with the parents, and divorce. Children seem unable to adjust well to profound changes in their environment, such as a divorce or a new partner for either parent.’
– To avoid the problems of anxiety or depression, these problems need to be resolved and to be taken lightly to allow time to deal with the child. The Bible gives us the picture of a happy family in Psalm 128.
PSALM 128: 3 – Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
– A happy family should have time to be together at a dinner table and every member should treasure that time. Nowadays, people are so busy that they don’t have time for their family’s members.
– In America, there are approximately 1,120,185 suicide cases happening each year (3,069 cases/a day). Many of those victims were teenagers and young children, like the cases of Allison Wendel and Mallory Rose Grossman.
– California girl, 10, commits suicide; police investigating whether bullying to blame.
– Cyberbullying on rise in US: 12-year-old was ‘all-American little girl’ before suicide
– Survey: 69 percent of parents feel ‘addicted’ to phone, say it’s cutting into time with kids.
– The Bible encourages parents to pay more attention to our children because they are gifts from God:
PSALM 127: 3 – Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
– We need to not only pay attention to their needs such as clothing, foods, or schooling, but we must pay attention to our words when parents talk to each other at home and to our children.
JAMES 1: 19 – Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath
– The most important thing we should do for our children is encourage them to go to church and learn to live according to God’ standards, so that they can be stable mentally and morally when they grow up.
PROVERBS 22: 6 – Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
– May God give us wisdom, understanding and patience to love and to nurture our children to grow up in a happy and morally stable families so that they will be good people for society and for God. Amen.