Learning from Correction and Reproof

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

So as we move along the training process with our children, there are going to be times when the child needs correction and reproof. We shouldn’t be surprised that our children will occasionally fail to be wise. These failures can be the result of their immaturity, and they can be the result of an unwillingness to submit to authority. In either case, it’s important that you, the parent, take the opportunity to further train your child through the proper use of correction and reproof. Hebrews 12, 5-6, we find these words, My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him for those whom the Lord loves.

He disciplines this verse reveals the motivation behind all correction and reproof. And that is love. When you’re disciplining your kids, you are doing it for love’s sake. Not to get even. Sadly, many times parents discipline out of a frustration and anger, fatigue, annoyance or embarrassment causing the lash out at their children with with their tons or worse. Somebody was asking me at the break time am I gonna remind parents to be careful with their tone when they’re speaking to their kids And this certainly fits here is in our discipline or a correction. We don’t want to be harsh with them I made a comment earlier in the evening about you use the same emotion you use when you take out the trash meaning It’s a non emotional event. It’s simply a son. I love you. You made a decision I need to respond to that decision to help you make a better decision next time and it doesn’t have to be any more emotions than that If we pattern the manner in which we correct and reprove after our heavenly Father, then we must learn to do it always from love.

Any other motivation on our part, such as anger, embarrassment, convenience, etc., is sin. Now this same passage in Hebrews goes on to show us the goal of correction and reprove. In Hebrews 12-11, which I think you have in front of you, says, All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, yet to those who’ve been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. The proper goal of correction and reproof is the peaceful fruit of righteousness. It isn’t to make our lives easier. It isn’t to get the kids to be quiet. It isn’t for our pleasure or convenience. It is so the child might manifest righteousness or, in other words, God-pleasing behavior.

So, what we have to do is we have to deal with the foolishness that is still bound up in our children’s heart. And that foolishness is going to manifest itself in different ways, and we have to learn how to recognize what the foolishness is so that we can respond to it the proper way. And there are two basic ways that foolishness manifests itself. The first way is in what we call childishness. Acts of childishness are born out of a child’s lack of training or maturity. There is no malicious intent. They simply don’t know better and so they do something foolish. A young child being careless and knocking over an expensive vase is an example of childishness.

Waving a flaming marshmallow around a campfire is another example. You can think of childishness as being a problem that originates in the head of the child. They simply don’t know any better and they aren’t mature enough to recognize the foolishness interactions. Nobody’s ever said don’t wave a marshmallow around the campfire. So hey it looks like fun, you know, pretty. And so they just don’t know better. Childishness can lead to acts of rebellion.

Take for example the broken vase. If the child was running through the house but had not been told not to, if they’ve been running and they’ve been told don’t run and then they break a vase then you have a case of childishness as well as rebellion so if they’ve never been told don’t run and they’re just being kiddies and they run and they break a vase you don’t discipline them for rebellion you discipline them for childishness we help clean up the mess maybe we help make restitution if that’s possible for that child and then we explain to them don’t run in the house this is what happens when we run the house then they run in the house again now you have rebellion and you might still have childishness, you know, if they break another vase as well. Rebellion is a problem that originates in the head or the heart of the child. This is where the child has been given instruction and has chosen to disregard the instruction and goes his own way. It can be as obvious as the child defiantly yelling no or it can be as subtle as the child who chronically forgets. We had

that problem with one of our kids. They knew the routine at night but we would say go get ready for bed. And they knew get pajamas on, brush your teeth, whatever the list was, and they knew what it was. One of them would always come down, did you brush your teeth? Oh, I forgot. Well, after a few nights of that, we applied a little love to their backside, and his memory improved immensely. You know, he didn’t forget to brush his teeth anymore. So you have to watch out. Both actions, both the flagrant no and the I forgots, both actions are a form of rebellion. The former is an example of active rebellion and the latter is an example of passive rebellion.

Rebellion also manifests itself in attitude. It is possible for a child to externally comply with our instructions, but to do it with a bad attitude. And I’m sure you parents have seen that at times where they’re doing what you asked, but it’s clear they’re not happy. We must learn to recognize rebellion in all its forms, active or passive, in all of its modes, actions or attitudes. So you’re watching for the right action and you’re watching for the right attitude and you’re asking yourself, was this active or passive rebellion that was going on? Sometimes it isn’t easy to tell, especially in the case of passive rebellion.

The classic example, as we mentioned, is the child is always forgetting what he was told to do. Chores is a common thing. Well, I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. You know, we all have fought that battle with kids doing chores. No, that’s called passive rebellion. And you deal with it as rebellion. Some parents will ask me, especially for little children, about their ability to remember. But what if he really didn’t remember? I said, do the cookie test. And you say, Johnny, remind me after dinner and I’ll give you a cookie. If they remembered to tell you to give you a cookie, you know their memory works just fine and they can remember the chore.

Okay. So it’s not really hard to figure out your kids. The parent just need to put on your thinking cap and be wise. We were having a problem with the kids coming down in a timely fashion on Sunday mornings. I would wake them up and I’d say, okay, I want everybody downstairs. We’re going to have breakfast and then we’re going to go to church. And they would dawdle and dawdle and dawdle and hound in them. And it was just a real problem. So one Sunday I went in there and I said, and they were still really young and they didn’t know what the value of money was yet. So I said, everybody that’s downstairs and ready to go and have for breakfast in five minutes gets a dime.

Well, lo and behold, they all showed up ready to go. And I, so I sat down and we’re eating breakfast and I said, I noticed this morning that you guys all got down here pretty quickly and we’re all dressed and ready to go. What happened? Why is that? Well, dad, you promised us a dime. I said, that’s right. I did. But you know what? How about next time we do it for the love of God and for the love of your parents and not for a dime? So they got the point. We didn’t have that problem anymore. But so again, use a parent have to be what’s going on in their heart And what can you do to reach the heart? You will have to determine if it is reasonable to expect the child to remember.

And if it is, then deal with it as forgetfulness. Deal with forgetfulness as rebellion. And again, I’ve already talked more about forgetfulness, so we’ll skip that. Rebellion and childness are both manifestations of foolishness. Rebellion, however, is of far more concern since it reflects the heart of the child and as biblical parents we are attempting to influence the heart of our child towards righteousness. I’m way more concerned about their rebellion than their childishness. Yeah, broken vases aren’t fun, but that can be repaired. But if I let them out into life with rebellion, we got problems. Both forms of foolishness need to be dealt with, but not in the same way.

When it comes to consequences for foolishness, parents often make the mistake of being either too hard on cases of childishness or too soft on cases of rebellion. We need to come up with appropriate ways of dealing with both types of foolishness as we seek to provide correction and reproof to our children. These consequences fall into three general categories, natural consequences, other consequences, and chastisement. So let’s take a look at each one of these now and see how they all work together. Natural consequences are consequences that are directly related to the foolish behavior. And to help make this point, I’ve brought in an expert testimony here who’s going to explain.

The situation is Esther, age three and a half. just come home from church. I said I’d like you guys to get out of the car and I’d like you to walk to the front door. Well Esther decided not to walk and so she’s gonna explain to you what happened next and natural consequences. I bumped my nose and bumped back. What were you doing? I was, um, don’t want to just front door. And what happened? I bumped it. Oh, did it hurt? Yeah. Oh. I got a thing of mine.

Um, I got the thing that goes in the baggie. It hurts. Yeah. Yeah, it’s just a good owie, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, are you a brave girl? Yeah, that’s good. And so, and so I guess, do you want to go home? Uh-huh. And I guess, if you need to go to Grandma’s house, you can stay at Grandma’s house. Okay, thank you. You’re welcome. So, that’s what natural consequences look like. So in that case, technically I had a situation of rebellion on my hands. I had told her to walk to the door and yet she chose to run and she face planted on our concrete steps and you could see the black and blue marks. But in that case, we felt that the natural consequences were sufficient punishment for that situation.

So there wasn’t any further action taken. But we reminded her again that it’s probably best to listen to my dad and do that. Other examples would be a child’s neglecting a toy.

might lose the privilege of playing with the toy for a few days. They’re always leaving the bicycle out in the rain, whatever it might be, so they lose it. A child won’t eat their dinner. Natural consequence might be no dessert, for example. Using natural consequences helps the child learn that there are consequences to their actions. Natural consequences are used mainly when dealing with cases of childishness, although in the example I just had with my daughter, it was used also as her form of chastisement. Natural consequences were the chastisement. The child forgot to do a chore and so they don’t get to go out and play when the friend calls because they have to do the chore. Natural consequences might be used along with chastisement when dealing with rebellion, but they shouldn’t be the primary tool used for dealing with rebellion, especially for the earlier years. As the kids get older, you’re not going to be spanking a 14 year old. And so consequent natural consequences and other consequences will be the thing you’re using there. But for little ones, you’re going

to be using for rebellion, we’re going to get into a moment, you’re going to be using more often than not, you’re going to be using chastisement as the proper way to deal with rebellion. But as far as childishness, we’re talking about just consequences. Sometimes There is no real good natural consequence for what they’ve done that’s childish, so you might have to come up with another consequence.

Other consequences follow the same rules as natural consequences, except that they don’t logically tie to the offense. It’s important that in any case that you make sure that the punishment fits the crime. Being too harsh will exasperate the child while being too lenient will not motivate the child to amend their behavior. If my child is leaving their bicycle out in the rain, and I say, son, you’ve left your bike out of the rain for three days in a row, so I’m going to take your bike away for the next five years, that’s a little extreme. Punishment does not fit the crime, so you have to be really careful there to make sure that it is logically tied as best you can and that it makes sense.

We had a case we had to deal with one of our sons, and there was not a logical consequence we could think of that tied immediately to the offense. And so as I recall in that particular situation, he had a little stuffed animal, a little dog. He called Orangie because it was an orange dog. And so we took Orangie away for a few nights, and that caused him great trauma. But it got to the heart of him and understood there’s a problem. So here are some other types of consequences that you might use. Again, nothing new here. Loss of privilege. time with friends, access to favorite things, et cetera. Timeouts. This can also include a kind of timeout we call a reflective timeout.

This is sort of where the kid is driving towards a ditch and they’re not listening to your warnings, and so you’re gonna give them a reflective timeout. They’re kicking the ball too vigorously in the backyard. The ball’s about to fly out into another neighbor’s yard. So you go out and say, guys, you need to tone it down. You need to be a little softer how you’re kicking the ball, or the ball’s bouncing off the windows, whatever it may be. You go back in, they’re towing it down for a few minutes, then they’re back to being just as vigorous, the ball’s bouncing off the house. You say, okay, come on in, you guys need to take a 10 minute time out.

I’m warning you, you’re gonna break a window or you’re gonna kick the ball in the neighbor’s yard. You’re not paying attention. So you’re gonna take 10 minutes just to sit here and think. And then when that’s done, you can let them go back out. And if they continue to disregard your instruction, that probably quickly moves into rebellion. But there are times when still childishness and you’re just trying to get them to, Their excitedness is causing them to be not pay attention to your warnings.

Making restitution, again, could be a part of the natural consequences. If they’ve done something, they’ve broken somebody’s toy, they might have to either give up one of their favorite toys, they might have to, you know, give money, whatever, again, you can think of that as a fair restitution. Sometimes if they’re really young, you might have to help chip in on the restitution, but something that costs them to help pay for that. So that’s dealing with and childishness. Yeah, and so now when you have to deal with foolishness though, then we move into a whole-nutter league. Again, now we’re dealing with a problem in the heart of the child.

Previously it was the head of the kid. Now it’s the heart of the kid. And what do we do with rebellion? I prefer to use the word chastisement because in our world today, when I think chastisement, I’m thinking spanking on the bottom. In our world today, spanking has been equated with all forms of physical punishment, slapping, hitting, arm wrenching, kicking, all of these. I’ve watched several documentaries. John Stossel did a documentary on this some years ago. And is spanking good or right? And as they were going over spanking, they were giving every example of child abuse you can think of and calling it spanking.

So I like to use the word chastisement. It’s kind of an old-fashioned word. But when I use that word, I’m thinking of again Classic spanking on the bottom with the appropriate tool in the appropriate way But all of this other stuff is nothing but child abuse the pulling of the hair the yanking of the arms the jerking Slapping all of that is unacceptable. That’s child abuse But even within the Christian community there are some who are opposed to spanking as I define it They see as somehow cruel or unnecessary. And again, all I can do is appeal back to the scriptures. Proverbs 13 24 plainly says, he who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

Notice how the Bible equates the proper use of chastisement with love. And I’ve gone back and I’ve asked my kids in their adult life, I said, do you think I spanked you Ron Lee or do you have any bad feelings about having been spanked and they just like me say dad you don’t know how many opportunities you missed that we deserved it but they today I’ve got them ages 32 to 26 and none of them have psychological damage from the spanking for some reason it must be has something about daughters Esther and mom insist I spanked her but I have no memory I I do know I spanked the boys, but she’s shaking her head. I did spank Esther.

But none of them have psychological scars. We have a great relationship. Chastisement is only to be used in cases of rebellion, passive or active, not for childishness, only for rebellion. You should never chastise for acts of childishness. Remember, though, acts of childishness can become acts of rebellion once you’ve constructed the child as to what is expected, i.e. don’t run through the house. Chastisement, in contrast, is limited in its method and its purpose. Chastisement’s purpose, get this, is not to punish the child. It isn’t to let the parent vent their frustration. Mark this down. Any time you chastise your child out of anger or frustration, you are in sin.

Chastisement’s purpose is to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness in your child. Think of righteousness as a narrow path your child is on. Occasionally, through acts of rebellion, your child may choose to leave the path. Chastisement uses pain as a motivator to help the child get back on the path of righteousness and choose to remain on the path. That’s all we’re doing. This is for saying, wow, son, man, I’m sorry that you chose to get off the path of righteousness. I’m going to obey God and I’m going to apply a little love to your backside so that you that pain will cause you to remember that it’s better to stay on the path of righteousness.

And I will say that with all about all that emotion. And I just say, and I’d tell I’d tell him, you know, they’d be crying and I don’t like spending. I said, I’ll make a deal. I promise. I’ll never speak you ever again. You just stand the path of righteousness. And fair, you know, and say, it’s up to you. How many spankings you get is totally under your control. I have no say in the matter. You decide and you put the responsibility where it belongs. Chest-tisement again uses pain as the motivator. We should note here that the goal as your child matures is that they will develop the internal heart motive to stay on the path of righteousness out of a love for God rather than a fear of pain.

So as you’re dealing with the aftermath of the spankings and stuff, you always want to take it back to the repentance and the forgiveness. And this was a this was a breach of a relationship with me, your father and with your heavenly father. So they’re making it right with both. So they always understand that when they said no dad or whatever disobeyed dad, it was a sin to me, but it was a direct sin to God also. And they always don’t understand that. So that’s you know, they’ve got to come terms with that. Chaz Teisman is something to use when the child is still young and developing the moral underpinnings that will guide them the rest of their life.

Some may question the practice of using chastisement on your children. Proverbs 19-18 instructs us with these words, discipline your son while there is hope and do not desire his death. Wow. Discipline your son while there is hope and do not desire his death.

So you are saying that somebody who is not willing to chastise is like one who desires is death. If you wait until the child is older before you start using chastisement, it’s likely the child will have deeply ingrained patterns of rebellion by then. It’s much easier to drive rebellion out of a four-year-old than a 14-year-old. Typically, some form of chastisement can be used as early as three to four months of old. And various parents, you know, differ on that age. I was teaching this material in Russia some years ago, And I think at the time I made the comment that you might start as early as six months and my translator About broke his neck he whipped around like the missions. We started doing it three months peace some form of discipline in Rare cases you might be used as late as 11 to 12 years you get you get to 11 12 years of age You’re probably getting a little old To be spanking your child I’d say it’d be really rare.

To be honest, our experience was that if you’re using chastisement properly in the early years, that you can probably have 80 to 90% of those spankings done by the time they’re six or seven. I mean, their hearts will have changed and come. There’ll still be some occasions, but now in the early years, if you’re like my number one son, you might wear three or four of those little paddles out before you do. you know, before you get to the heart. But you’d be patient with the process. So the little ones, the three to four, are obviously diapers you’re on and things. So different parents will try different things. You know, the flick on the hand, maybe the flick on the cheek, the little swat below the diaper line.

You know, use good judgment. The law of Washington State says, you can use corporal punishment on your parents. What you cannot do, huh? I own your parents, on your children. The kids love that comment. So, OK, yeah. So kids, you just shoot us, but you go to jail. So OK. But what you cannot do is you cannot leave permanent marks. It says temporary redness is OK. If your spanking leaves temporary redness, that’s OK. You cannot interfere with their breathing. So no paper, sex over their heads. But basically, you are free to use chest tison on your children. And, but as they get older, by the time they’re one-ish, and I’m getting far enough away from it, I can’t remember, but you younger moms that are already practicing, it can help the other young moms, one-ish, you’re gonna be doing just the regular spankings and right on up until the six, seven years of age.

And don’t be surprised again if you’re spanking frequently. Now, here’s a key principle in this process. Understand that you will, at times, lose the battle of the day. There are days your child wakes up and says to themselves, today’s a good day to die. And so they’re going to throw down, and you’re going to spank, and spank, and spank, and spank. And you’re like, do I put a nail in the thing? What do I do? And I was like, and I suggest you go two, maybe three rounds with them, OK, and buy rounds, a spanking session, give them some time to think. You come back. You might spank them again. And then if they won’t break, you decide, OK, you win this one today, kid.

And you may have to take something else away or have some other consequence, but you may not get them to say uncle that day. You want to win the war, but you may not win every battle. So use your good judgment. Don’t spank them 20 times one day trying to win the war that day. If you’re not sure, again, call your friends that are maybe a little heady in the parenting process, what do I do? What do I think? We really thought, you know, we thought number one had no nerve endings in his backside. Um, don’t touch, spank. Well, back to touching. This is like, and yet somehow at two years old, it sunk through and he became one of our most compliant kids.

So you just, it’s just patients be doing the right thing, trusting God by faith that if you do the right thing, it will eventually sink in every kid’s different. Some of you have that you know that Extremely hard child who’s just really strong-willed and it can be very exasperating. I’ve seen those kind of kids and it’s tough But you know be faithful keep working on if they are strong-willed Make sure that it’s not the other issues we talked about earlier today that it’s not something about your relationship That’s causing agitation and irritation because if they’ve got that going on in their little hearts Nothing else will work We had a mom three doors down from us. She was a public school teacher a believer She came to us one day at the time her son was four years old She knew we were teaching some parenting stuff and she says what do I do my four year olds totally out of control?

He’s hitting me with his fists and he’s saying I hate you mommy. I hate you mommy I hate you mommy and she had been taught the other the public school system and stuff You know that spanking is bad and wrong and she’s used trying timeouts and all this We just sat down and we just explained these principles I’m sharing with you now. We talked about this is an issue of rebellion. We talked about the relationship with her husband, make sure that’s right. He said, well, it sounds like there’s some rebellion going on. We explained chastisement, when it’s to be used, the proper way to do it. She went home and practiced it.

And she came back like, wouldn’t even a week later, and she says, I have a different kid. The kid was just so wound up with internal guilt, getting away with murder. And mommy’s just saying, here, time out, sit in your corner. You know but when mom finally got serious and dealt with it a biblical way the child got the message It released the I believe what happens it really released the guilt in this little four-year-old who couldn’t verbalize What’s going on and all of a sudden the relationship of the mom was made better and the boy became much more compliant How much how and how much should be spank or questions most parents have Proverbs 23 13 tells parents Do not hold back discipline from the child, although you beat him with a rod, he will not die.

Now, wait a minute. Now I’ve got to finish my thought. This passage is not giving parents license to beat their children. The point being made here is that failure to discipline, when appropriate, is the greater risk to our children’s well-being. So again, that verse is not encouraging, beat your kids. But he’s talking about even if you were to beat your kid, he will not die.

but the issue of his heart is so serious you better discipline him when he needs it. The spanking needs to discourage the child away from acts of rebellion in the future, but not physically injure the child or leave more than a momentary redness on the skin. Bruising the child should be avoided, although a minor bruise may occur on some children. The rod that Proverbs refers to, as best we know, was some kind of a thin and flexible thing. It was light enough to lower the chance of injuring the child, yet its flexibility produced a noticeable stain. It seems like in the R-Circles these days the popular thing I’ve seen used is the long glue sticks, do a lot of moms use those. Back in our day we had a piece of conveyor belt that was about that long, about yay thick, about that wide, very flexible, not like a belt flexible but you know bends. And it distributed the force so that it minimized the chance of bruising and injuring the skin but it produced the dickens of a steam. You know that’s what

you want is you want that steam that just is you know causes the pain so you say something’s going on back there. Okay moms I don’t recommend the wooden spoons and those kinds of things. One if you especially if you’re doing that through the kids genes they’re like somebody’s annoying me back there I’m not sure what’s going on back there but wooden spoons the danger too is they’re not flexible enough some kids gonna slip his hand back there and get a finger between that and a spoon, chance of injuring a finger. So again, I think lightweight but flexible, that will produce a good stain, but not leave bruises and marks.

So again, I know a lot of parents these days seem to be using those glue sticks, and that seems to do the trick. If you’re not sure, you can ask some of the other young parents who are already practicing chastisement what they’re using. But I would move away from anything that’s rigid from using that. There’s no hard and fast rules about how many swats to give your child. Factors to consider are the types of the offense and the age of the child. Usually one or two swats is appropriate for very little children while two or three are appropriate for older ones. Now again, make the swats count. Now it’s not wind up batter, batter, batter, but it’s got to count.

All right. And if you’re not sure, talk to your spouse. And we practiced it on each other. Did that stain? So, you know… Well, you got to find out. But talking with other parents will help you decide. Alright. You guys get your minds where it belongs. Two more pages hanging there. In almost all cases, chastisement that is fair and not too harsh will actually draw the parent and child together. And we found that to be true in our discipline of our kids. that never after an episode was there a lasting anger resentment against us, but rather it was they were glad to restore the relationship. They were eager to get it back right.

And I think that’s again because we they understood that we were doing it because we love them and we wanted to obey God. As parents, we had a job that it had been their choice to make the decision. And all you’re trying to do is say we will please make a good choice next time I don’t like spanking you please make another choice, and then they just they understood and they took it If your child shows resentment or sullenness after spanking then it indicates that your discipline is being ineffective Sometimes you’ll have to spank a child a second or even a third time until you see a proper attitude of repentance But again if they decided today’s a good day to die You give it up after two or three episodes and then pick it up at the next offense.

Your child should you should train your child to accept chastisement without making a huge scene. Even a child as young as two should be able to assume the position without dancing all around and trying to protect its backside. And I know that can be tough. Some kids are just the the fear or something about it. They just it’s a hard time. You talk to them ahead of time. You can talk to them in times of non-conflict. You say, you know, last time we spanked you and how you were really dancing around and you wouldn’t stand still? Yeah. We know that’s also rebellion. You need to learn to hold still and take your discipline.

And I want you to work on that. And so you start coaching them and talking about it. And they start to get it. Now, again, I know there are just some kids that are going to fight it. There’s times you may have to restrain them as you apply the discipline. There’s no magic bullet there if you have to have one of those kids that will not hold still. But just keep working with them and hopefully God will bring them around to where they’ll accept it. When you do chastise your child, always do it in a private place. Do not embarrass the child before others. Issues of rebellion don’t always come up at the most convenient times.

One of the moms was telling me at break time, that seems like her child would choose the store to act up. We would have moms leave a full grocery cart in the store and say, I’ll be back and take the child out to the car and deal with the child and then come back and finish your shopping. I know we live in days and times that are difficult and there’s always that person watching and they’re going to call the police, but at least again, you have the legal right as a parent to spank your child, you know, again in a proper way. So you shouldn’t necessarily have to be afraid of that, but you never know in this day and age will some crazy person call CPS to your house.

In some cases, a spanking may have to be deferred, but typically it’s best to deal with it as soon as possible. If your child can’t remember the cookie question, they can remember the offense that deserved a spanking. So if you’re in the store and say, remember this moment because when we get home, we’re going to deal with this. A two-year-old can easily remember that. Okay, so you don’t have to worry about, oh, my opportunity went bye-bye because, you know, an hour’s elapsed.

You can recall it to their memory if the situation means you have to wait a little bit of time. Earlier we mentioned that chastisement is not something to use on older children. For older children, other offenses for rebellion such as loss of privilege usually are more painful than an actual spanking. So that’s where you just have to be wise parents and know what matters to your child, what can I take away that’s going to really hit their heart, and that’s what you want to go for. Remember the goal of chastisement is not punishment, but rather to motivate the child to choose the path of righteousness. It should be used for acts of rebellion and never used for acts of childishness. Dealing with foolishness in our children is not something parents enjoy. At least I hope you don’t enjoy it. Often we are tired and just want the problem to go away.

Nevertheless, we are required by God to act as His agent in dealing with acts the foolishness done by our children. Whether childish or rebellious, left unchallenged, our children are at risk of becoming fools in their adult life. Love for God and our children demands that we faithfully confront acts of foolishness whenever they crop up so that our children might learn to walk among the wise. If we fail to do this, we will likely learn the heartbreak so many before have felt when they see the inevitable result. If instead we deal with our children’s foolishness now, we then have the very good chance that our children will continue to be a source of encouragement and blessing to us and others long after they’ve left our home. May God help us to be faithful to the proper application of this aspect of biblical love to our children.

And to be patient then just to apply the truths, the principles that we’ve heard, that we’ve learned, the things that we already know that we should be doing, just to stick with basics and to by faith believe that you in good season will cause this to come to fruit and to blossom and to find young men and women especially father for our young moms and dads in the room who are in those early phases and definitely afraid you’re gonna mess their kids up you know help them to be able to relax and know that this is a long-term process and that it’s too early to evaluate if they’ve succeeded or not, but just help them to be faithful. And may the rest of us who perhaps have already walked the road and have gone a little further, not wipe our hands of it and say we’re done, but to come alongside and to help to and encourage to support in any way we can to help lighten the load a little bit. Thank you for all your good gifts. Give us some safe travels in a profitable week as we start our week again tomorrow. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

And to be patient then just to apply the truths, the principles that we’ve heard, that we’ve learned, the things that we already know that we should be doing, just to stick with basics and to by faith believe that you in good season will cause this to come to fruit and to blossom and to find young men and women especially father for our young moms and dads in the room who are in those early phases and definitely afraid you’re gonna mess their kids up you know help them to be able to relax and know that this is a long-term process and that it’s too early to evaluate if they’ve succeeded or not, but just help them to be faithful. And may the rest of us who perhaps have already walked the road and have gone a little further, not wipe our hands of it and say we’re done, but to come alongside and to help to and encourage to support in any way we can to help lighten the load a little bit. Thank you for all your good gifts. Give us some safe travels in a profitable week as we start our week again tomorrow. I pray in Jesus’