Today I read Ephesians 6, the final chapter in Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This chapter is perhaps best known for the part about putting on the whole armor of God. But I actually have been having something different on my mind the last couple of days. Yesterday we talked about loving our spouses and today Paul is telling children to obey their parents so that they may have a long life upon the earth.
The other day, I was driving to work and happened to have the radio on which doesn't happen all that often. It was the song, "Cat's in the Cradle". For those of you who may not be familiar with it, it is sung from the viewpoint of a father who is too busy to spend time with his son. But as his son grows up, he finds that he wants to spend more time with his son, but his son has lost interest with spending time with his dad and finally at the end of the song, the son has moved away and the father and son never see each other because the son won't make time for the father and the father realizes that his son has grown up just like him, much to his chagrin. It got me thinking about people who spend too much time on things other than their families, and this can even include church functions and callings.
Our families are important. Extremely important actually and I believe that Heavenly Father will hold us accountable for how we interacted with them. Ever since I returned from my mission and graduated from college, I have tried really hard to separate work and home life. I have tried not to let either part of my life overlap if at all possible. It has not always worked out that way, but I do what I can to make it work. It is extremely important to me that stress from my work does not bleed over into my family's life and that I do not bring my work home with me. Children are a good example of how we should be. They just want to spend time with us. They want to do what we are doing and they emulate us no matter what we are doing, good or bad habits. But as adults we think we need to be busy, that no matter what else we have on our plate, that we need to be doing more. We treat it almost as if it were a sin to just pause and rest. But I tell you truthfully that it is no sin to spend time just playing with your children, especially when they are really young and I daresay that Heavenly Father would rather us spend time with our children teaching them the Gospel and the right things we should be doing than even giving service to someone in the ward or someone we don't know.
Heavenly Father loves little children very much. He loves them so much that if any of them pass away before they reach the age of accountability, they return straight back to Him and are saved. He loves them perhaps more than any of His other creations. And He trusts them into our care. He expects us to provide the basic necessities for them and to teach them the right way to live and return to Him some day. That is the reason behind the promise to listen to your father and mother and your days will be long upon the earth. Our parents teach us the right way to live and by listening to them, we will know what we need to do to be safe in the world, both physically and spiritually. Think about it, if you did not learn from your parents that a knife is sharp, how long would you live before you accidentally cut yourself and bled to death? In that case listening to your parents can lengthen your life by as much as 80 years! In a spiritual sense if we listen to our parents and wait until we are married to have sexual relations, we will save ourselves heartache and potentially a physical disease as well.
Families are the basic unit of God's plan and part of the requirement He holds of those who would be parents is to make sure that they are prepared to teach the children that He entrusts into their care the things they will need to know in this life and we will be held accountable by Him on how we cared for His precious little ones. And if we did not do a good job of caring for His children, we will wish the very rocks of the earth to hide us from His face. But we all must stand before Him and be held accountable for our actions and what we could have done if we had done things His way. For me personally, it is enough to see the joy on my daughter's face when she learns something new, but others need that added incentive to teach their children. Whatever your reasons, teach your children the right way to live and you will be glad you did. Until tomorrow.
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