What Are Your Children Hungry For?

I have an important question for you: what hunger are you nurturing in your children?

The natural hunger of a child is for its mothers' milk. The natural hunger of a child of God is for the Word of God, which is the expressed essence of the truth of God.

1 Peter 2:2-3 reads, "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious."

The Holy Spirit through Peter was speaking to new believers, babes in Christ. The two terms -- new, babes -- are supposed to go together, but in today's 'cultural Christianity' there are many who regard themselves as long-time Christians, yet are 'babes' in maturity. That is mostly because they are following their cravings, having not been disciplined to focus on what is best for them.

We are instructed to "desire the pure milk of the word."

As a parent, you are nurturing hungers -- desires -- of your children, the question is whether you recognize it and do it with purpose. When a child expresses a hunger, you either feed it (enable it, grow it, satisfy it, thus nurture it) or suppress it, hopefully causing it to go away.

Examine the hungers of your child(ren). Do they hunger for healthy things? If they hungered for dog food, you would suppress it! You wouldn't let them anywhere near the dog food. But if they hunger for the 'things of this world,' do you deny them, or indulge them? And where is the line.

The line is at the point of self-control, where a desire supercedes a person's (child or adult) ability and willingness to redirect to better things.

Parenting requires a lot of observation, thinking and measuring according to the Word of God. You must shape the mind of your child.

1 Peter 2 continues in verses 4 and 5 by saying that we are "living stones, being built up as spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

You and I are not here to be about the business of the world, but to be about the business of the King, our Lord, in the world. The world is our location, not our identity. We must live that way as parents, and prepare our children that way. That means feeding them pure spiritual milk, limiting and often outright cutting off anything that isn't good for them. Note the careful wording there -- our job as parents is not to merely keep from from what is bad for them, but to at least strongly limit what is not good for them.

Oswald Chambers wrote (May 17 devotional), "It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us." As parents, let's laser-focus that thought on the hungers of our children, and what we're allowing them to feed on.

I love Steven Furtick's quote, "We aren't raising our children to survive the world, but to change the world!"


Links & Quotes

* Go www.fbconcord.org/parenthood and check out info about the April 10 parenting conference. Do you have one day to give to becoming a better parent? Join us. And tell others!

* Let this quote be a life filter, and discuss it with your children: "Most of us spend most of our lives accumulating the wrong things for the wrong reasons." -- Mark Batterson

* This isn't a pastor ranting at his people, it's a pastor digesting this himself and letting you watch. 'Giving' has many context. Please consider: http://www.leadingsmart.com/2010/03/frustrated.html

* Board material from Chambers: "Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or to insignificant for you to do."