Helping Our Young People to Grow and Mature…

Helping Our Young People to Grow and Mature … Goals for Parents/Grandparents … and the Young

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Being a parent is such a rewarding experience! Being a grandparent is simply magical! Being an aunt or uncle is a wonderful privilege! We should desire that our kids and our grandkids grow up and develop and enter into society as secure, mature, confident and capable young adults … young adults who can handle the pressures thrown at them in the demanding arena of life!

The question confronting parents/grandparents, aunts, uncles is this: “How can we help to steer our boys and girls, young men and young women past the many negative influences that literally confront them on every side?” This, my friends, is a question with eternal implications!

What we all want and need is to hear some reliable information. We all want and need to receive some dependable direction. What we are all looking for is some useful, practical and dependable principles that work! Our primary source has been and should always be the One who originated the whole idea of home and family … God Himself! It is to His Book, the Bible that we should be turning to find those things that “… pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3) You see, it is in His Word that we will find “… what is profitable … that we may become perfect, thoroughly furnished ….” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17).

Now, it should be understood from the get-go that the highest goal and objective we could ever work at and pray for is that our kids acquire and maintain their own faith in God! This goal will just not happen without a deliberate effort by all … including the cooperation and effort of the kids themselves!

So, for the next couple of posts, we want to give some thought to those goals and objectives that we can teach our children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces … and then commit to helping them achieve these goals. We want to consider goals such as the following:

• Developing a closer relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ!
• Developing a better sense of family and how to contribute to better family life!
• Developing a better relationship with friends and others in school!
• Developing a better sense of participation in the church!
• Developing a better sense of citizenship!

Having lived for many years and been involved in the lives of countless young couples, young families and older families, and hundreds and hundreds of young people, this editor has been witness to the increasing influence of the evil world around us in every way. The time has come for me to speak once more in clear and concise terms the concerns and the solutions provided to us by our Creator. The prophet Jeremiah expressed it this way in Jeremiah 20:9, “Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name’ But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.”

We are appealing to the hearts and minds … to the consciences of each one of us to become better stewards of what the Lord has entrusted with our care and keeping! Will you commit to follow along for the next several weeks to these sobering, enlightening and encouraging words? We pray that you will.

Bill Fairchild, Jr.