Have you ever seen wool or cotton before it has been spun into thread? It is amazing to me that a big jumbled mess of fluff can be neatly and seamlessly arranged into a fine strand that is strong and smooth. I think this makes a good analogy for what we are doing in rearing our children, not to mention for what God is doing in rearing us as His children. He is taking the jumbled mess of our lives and working it over until it is smooth and strong and useful for playing its part in His kingdom tapestry. And we are to assist in His work in the way we train our children.
The bible tells us that the foundation is God's as the maker of life, but that we will each be judged based on the materials we used for building on it:
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 "According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire."
There are times in my life when I am spinning straw and spinning straw and spinning straw and all that is coming out is a tangled mess of spun straw, not useful for anything. No matter how much I want to believe the outcome of my activity will be pure gold, my work is worthless because my material is worthless. Hear me in a different way: the reason my straw spinning didn't result in gold has nothing to do with my effort and work; it has everything to do with what I was working with. I want to be certain that I choose the right materials when I build on God's foundation (Christ being the Cornerstone), in both my life and my children's lives.
My mother and I were talking the other day about the finitude of our capacity for just about everything in this bodily form. This wasn't really a talk about food, but that makes a good analogy for where I'm going. When my kids fill up at snack time, they won't eat dinner for me. Why? Because they are limited in how much they can eat by the size of their stomachs. They can fill that space with all manner of things, some good, some bad. And they will be judged based on what they fill it with, won't they? Whether or not they made good choices in their eating will be reflected in their weight and health years later, or in whether or not they are able to keep the food down in the present!
In our children's eating, our goal as parents should be to encourage a good appetite for what is good. But the stomach is not our only organ with finite capacity. How much can the heart hold? How much can the mind? In our children's reading, we should encourage an appetite for what is good. In our children's watching, we should encourage an appetite for what is good. In our children's buying, playing, time, studies, we should encourage an appetite for what is good. We should put gold in if we want to get gold out.
Because the truth is, there really is a Rumpelstiltskin in this world trying to convince us that we can use straw to make gold in our lives. This world is full of straw disguised as gold. And this world is full of people who are building with and storing up Rumpelstiltskin's gold, not realizing that it is worthless straw.
To save the life of her child, the miller's daughter had to learn Rumpelstiltskin's name. Our challenge as parents is to know the name and teach it to our children. Call the liar the liar. Call gold, gold. Show your children straw and teach them the difference. And begin with identifying and removing the straw in your own life so that your children will be free to follow your example.
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