By Tom and Richard Blackaby
Published by B&H Publishing,
Nashville, Tennessee 2013
As an adult, what is the most difficult
area of your life? Where do you often have to make the hardest
decisions, and sometimes experience what are your greatest failures
or greatest accomplishments? If you are a parent, it would be in
raising your family. And if you are a Christian, it is raising your
children to become followers of Christ, to accept Him as their own.
That's what this book sets out to accomplish. It applies guidelines
from Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. It
is the belief of the authors, and my belief as well, that it is
harder today to raise Christian, God-fearing children, than it has
ever been. If you don't believe it, think about your own youth and
compare it with the experiences and temptations our own kids have to
deal with today.
The Blackaby's use their own families
as examples of how to raise Godly children, and don't polish the
stories to make their families look good. Do you think your kids are
going to make it easy to raise them as Christians? No, their
natural bent, as well as yours and mine, is to lean towards sin.
Isn't that our birthright? Our inheritance from our long ago first
ancestors? And just how self-centered is this generation? I have
heard from my own children that it's “all about me”. They are
right. You see it everyday everywhere you look. Haven't you heard
the phrase calling this the “me generation”?
Here's a statistic that hits home for
me: “Some studies indicate that roughly 70 percent of children who
grow up attending church with their family will walk away from church
– and often God – when they become teenagers and young adults.”
I can attest to that. My own teenage sons who grew up in church
and both made professions of faith as kids, politely refuse to attend
church any longer. Fortunately I still see the impact of what they
learned in their lives through their kindness to others and their
casual, unsolicited comments on faith.
You may find yourself alternately
laughing and crying as you read this book, and hopefully on your
knees asking God to use you to influence your children to follow Him.
You will find not only practical examples of how to and not to raise
your children, but also study guides at the end of chapters. And
have you ever heard that the only person you can ever change is
yourself? You'll find ideas for that in this book, as well. And
when you change yourself and allow God to work in your own life,
maybe you will be surprised that it flows through you and allows your
family to want to learn to follow Him, too. Nothing, however, comes
without great effort and much prayer. And unfortunately sometimes
that is not enough. We all have the gift of free will. Sometimes we
must endure the heartache and continue to trust God. Don't give up!
I don't want to give away the contents
of this book – you are going to be in for some surprises! Talk
about Biblical examples of parents in the Bible – how many of them
were successful? Who were failures? You might be surprised! Take a
chance, read the book, and challenge your family to a closer walk
with God. And share this book with others!
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