Daily Devotions

Our devotions this Easter season come from members of Faith Lutheran Church. Today’s writer is Judy Adams.

“Discipline your children, and they will give you rest; they will give delight to your heart.” Proverbs 29:17

As a mother of two sons and a grandmother of five (four boys and a girl), I read and reread the scripture as I was thinking about writing this devotional. REST? Really? Not sure that rest and children have ever been used in the same sentence. Seems like an oxymoron to me.

And then there’s the educator side of my life. Having started working with children over 40 years ago in a school setting, I have watched parents for decades deal with the everyday joys and challenges of rearing their children. The tears of joy watching their child perform in the school play or being the author of the day in their classroom often turn to tears of despair when their child makes that wrong decision in their middle school years. REST?

And then there’s that issue of discipline. I apologized to my daughter-in-laws when they married my sons. I told them we did the best that we could, but now it was their turn. It was a family joke, but as a parent who loved and cared every day, who raised our boys in our church, there is always more to be done. Why didn’t we take the time to do daily devotions when our boys were growing up? REST?

And yet my heart is bursting with love and the knowledge that George and I did the best we could. As grandparents, we delight in both our children and our grandchildren. And when we babysit and put our little ones to bed, what joy we feel when they say, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” and then the Lord’s prayer, and then they bless everyone they ever met. That is truly the delight in our hearts. Or perhaps it’s the time before each meal, when everyone “fights” over who gets to say their prayer. The love of Jesus continues.

So as we embrace every part of our life, we do feel rest and joy. The foundation has been laid.

Let us pray: Dear God, thank you for families, for parents, for teachers, for Sunday School teachers, for aunts and uncles, for friends and for all who love, care, and build the spiritual foundations for our children. May God continue to be the light that guides their lives. REST!!! It’s not easy but give us the strength and love to make Jesus the center of our lives and of our children’s lives. For when our children are centered in Jesus Christ, there is no greater delight in our hearts. Amen.

This entry was posted on May 10, 2017 at 4:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.