Repicture Obedience at HomeSample

Perfect pictures are a glimpse of a part, not the whole. Even though the outward action is the snapshot of obedience, it is not the complete story. Obedience training is not about the snapshot. It is about everything leading up to it. 

So, how do we train up our children to truly get that natural, perfect picture? The good and bad news of training in obedience is the same. It’s not about us, it’s all about them. It doesn’t matter if we kindly and perfectly ask or if we are loud or if we enforce consequences. The choice to obey lies solely on our children. They are humans (as are we) born into a sinful nature. When Eve chose in the garden to disobey, she desired to do what she wanted to do. It did not matter that everything she could ever want or need was already there for her. It did not matter that she could walk and talk with God unhindered and unashamed. It did not matter that she lived in perfect freedom. She wanted what she wanted and acted upon it. So do we.

Therefore, training up a child in the way they should go is not fully about the act of obedience. Rather it is a lifelong four-fold lesson that consists of training our children to listen, trust, say yes, and then obey. We must go deeper than the outward action for obedience to have its root where it belongs- in the heart. 

Our Father continually takes us through the school of trust and obedience throughout our entire lives, but He gives us the privilege of setting the stage so our children can truly obey Him. His training of us is free of scrambling, coercing, demanding, pleading, pacifying, or doing whatever it takes to get an outward action- that one small snapshot of obedience. He rather calls us into a relationship with Him, which leads to joyful and restful obedience. Shouldn’t our parenting reflect this? 

As we, us and our children, see how good God is, it becomes our joy to give our yes and say, “not my will, but yours.” Our parenting leads our children back to the garden, to walk and talk with Him, and to love His authority. We can only understand obedience through relationship, not compliance to rules. 

Our relationship with our Heavenly Father therefore sets up the most beautiful picture of a lifetime of love in Him.