Do not provoke your children

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Originally uploaded by chandrangopalan

As a family we went out for a meal, to celebrate both our wedding anniversary and Father's day. It was a time to catch up on what was happening in our daughter's life at university. Time has flown by so quickly and she has grown up..... to be a "model". I guess that is what every parent say of their child.

This was not my view, not too long ago. The verse "not to provoke your children" came flooding back to my mind, as I penned this down.

Ephesians 6: 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. 4 And fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (MKJV)

Being brought up in a typical Asian cultural context I didn't know how to raise our child any other way. This is despite knowing the Bible and the verse above well. It highlights our inability for affective learning, that is, to translate the Word of God into application which we can then implement for our lives. But praise be to God who never fails us He taught me the hard way to handle my relationship with my daughter. Through many personal insecurities and unpleasant encounters, I learnt to let go and let God.

I learnt to deal with my own issues and released my daughter into the able Hand of the living God and He came through for both of us. Although I must admit we have a ways to go but it is being built up on solid ground.

Much of my change had to do with adjusting to the lifestyle of children living in the twenty first century. For this reason I have ventured more into the cyberspace to "connect" to the current world that we live in.

Being a PK was not easy for my daughter too and she had to learn to cope with the many changes that was taking place in her life as we journeyed with God through the last 13 years. I eventually told her it was alright for her to be with her friends as long as she kept the faith and fellowshipped with and in the Body.

This experience is unique with every parent and so this don't apply across the board nor is it the same with every child. God needs to direct us in our handling of each situation as they will be unique. As we see in the Bible no two battles were fought the same way and King David enquired of God all the time. We too, need to do that and enquire of the Lord Jesus Christ, for everything, as we journey through this life together.

Something just dawn on me earlier today which I realized sometime ago, when I see my family in heaven we will all be brothers and sisters in the family of God. No father and mother, husband and wife, son and daughter....we will all be in a heavenly party worshipping our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We will all become as one family with our Father and Brother!