Is Your Child A Surprise?

A couple from my college youth group married. They were very surprised to find a couple months later that they had gotten pregnant on their honeymoon. We know others who thought their families were complete when years later a “surprise package” joined their home.

I really like what Rick Warren says in his book the Purpose Driven Life:

Each child you are given is specially created and designed by God and given to you to raise for the purpose God has for them. The question is, are you raising your children the way that God wants you to? Do you thank God for making your child strong minded knowing God intends for him to be a leader someday? Are you seeking from God how to raise each of your children to help them find their purpose?

Although our four grandkids all came from the same parents, they are intriguingly different! This makes it more challenging for their parents to raise them because when it comes to kids, rarely does “one size fit all”. Oh, how much easier it would be to have a mold you could put kids through to press them out to go the way they are supposed to. God did give us a mold, it is called the Bible! If you raise every one of your children by the principles within it, God will be able to use them as He designed them for!

Even though all your kids are being raised with the same biblical principles, it looks different for each child. Knowing their temperament helps as it gives you perspective on the “bent” of each child. You tell your kids to share their toys with their younger siblings. Your child with the Choleric temperament will give his brother one of his toys, tell him not to break it and walk away. Your child with the Melancholy temperament will take all day to decide which toy to give his brother then will spend the rest of the day showing him how to use it correctly. Your child with the Sanguine temperament will give his brother whatever toy he wants and play with him taking their imaginations to great heights. Your child with the Phlegmatic temperament will give his brother a toy and sit and watch him play without saying a word. All of these examples are demonstrations of kindness.

The problem with raising them with Godly standards takes time! This week, we would like to encourage you to go on a date to talk about your kids, looking at them from God’s perspective and to evaluate and think through the following questions:

Make a list of no more than 5 specific areas to work on with each child, but only work on one at a time until they have it down before moving on to the others on your list. Having a plan of how to work on each weakness and strength is the best way to work together to make this happen.

Training your kids “in the way they should go” as Proverbs 22:6 says, means training them the way God originally intended each one of your kids to be in their uniqueness. The only way you can properly train them is to seek God’s direction by asking Him how He wants to raise each of your kids keeping their uniqueness in mind.

“Understanding Character Training”