Articles - Bulletin
Doing What I Ought To Do
Doing What I Ought To Do
Every parent knows, both novice and veteran, that parenting brings many different emotions and challenges. When our children are very young we can’t wait for the days that we’ll be able to reason with our child. As they grow in age and maturity we try and reason with them and wish they were little again.
Belinda and I have tried to teach our children from a very young age not only right and wrong but the understanding that they have to make that choice. Making the right choices and doing what they know they ought to or choosing to not do what they aren’t supposed to carries with it blessings and rewards. Not doing what they should or doing what they shouldn’t bring with it corrective discipline and punishment.
There are days at home and reports from teachers of their respectful and appropriate behavior and as a parent it brings you great joy. Then there are the not so good days and poor reports that cause you grief and frustration. Both cases revolve around making good or poor choices.
Recently after having another “session” with one of our children, spending much time after the punishment talking about making good choices and being a leader, I woke the next day thinking about how God must feel towards us at times.
As adults we face the same challenges everyday do we not? We get so frustrated with our children because we just can’t understand what they were thinking and why they would make that poor choice, knowing they shouldn’t!
“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:14-24)
I know I have felt this in my life so many times. There are still times that we say or do something and then spend the rest of the day kicking ourselves for doing something we shouldn’t have or not doing something we should’ve. “But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t discipline our children. “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Heb. 12:5-6)
Thanks be to God for His steadfast love!
--E
