Happy Easter! A couple days late, but aren't we always celebrating what Easter morning represents? It is amazing what God did for us that weekend so many years ago that lasts for eternity! As I reflect on what he went through and what we get out of it, I am encouraged and empowered to give back to him and to utilize what he has given to me. He has provided not only a roof over my head, a family, food on the table but talents and gifts that he entrusted to me to use for his service. Sometimes, those talents may be hard to identify in my mind's eye but they are there, I just know it!
Once we consider parenting a calling, it changes our focus in many ways and one of those is how we spend our 'talents' that he has blessed us with. In Matthew 25:14-28 Jesus shares the parable of the talents. As a recap, there are three men whose master gives 'talents'. (Back in the day talents were money, but I love that the word 'talent' can also be used as gifts God has given to us, creativity, organization, teaching, leading, singing, etc.) In the parable each man, or servant, is given a number of talents and the master goes away. Some of the men invest the talents and earn more than they began with while one buries his talents and only has what the master left him with when the master returns. Wow, there are so many stories in that parable. Are we using our talents for the Lord? Are we hiding them deep in our heart and guarding them or are we using them in our daily parenting? What skills have you been blessed with and how can you utilize them daily and in your parenting? Our children have been entrusted to us for a time and they are fruitful ground upon which we can directly invest our talents that God has given us. Can you use your creative ability in parenting, I would guess that you could? What has God given you that you have not tapped into for use in parenting?
It is one thing to think about our talents and how we can use them in parenting, but if we take it a step further, we associate all we have been given by God with tithing. Throughout the old testament, the people of God are commanded to provide a tithe to the Lord of their first fruits. Their first fruits were the best of everything they have been given. What if we considered tithing not just from our financial blessings from God but giving from our energy, mental resources, parenting, marriage, time, and love? The first tithe was in Genesis 28:22. After Jacob had an amazing dream from the Lord, through which he was struck by the awareness that the Lord would carry him through his coming journey and would provide food and clothing and everything he needed, he committed to the Lord to give him a tenth of everything the Lord gave to him. What would happen if, as parents who are CALLED and not challenged, we took a tenth of everything the Lord has given us daily and fed that into our parenting and the example we set for our kids. I think of the energy I have each day when I wake and the talents he has given me, and on the days I focus on my calling first with the use of that energy and those talents how different the day turns out for my children and I. Traditionally I have been taught tithing as a tangible thing, financial. But what if we tithe the intangible also? If I used that daily in parenting I would be able to live out John 3:30 for my children.
"He must become greater; I must become less." It would help them move them from me being their center to God being their center, right?
"He must become greater; I must become less." It would help them move them from me being their center to God being their center, right?
Are we giving the best of ourselves to the Lord and is that reflected in our parenting?
By His Grace
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