"Teachable" -3

Sadly to say, we are all teachers to our children, to good and to bad. If you study a child and compare their actions to that of the parents, you will find that they develop certain traits of the parent; and then, almost as if they take ownership of that trait, they develop it into their own, but stronger. This can be a scary thing if your actions around your developing child are not those that are good, and worthy of passing on to the next generation. I do not claim to know all there is to know about raising a child, but I do know what the Bible says regarding teaching a child in the way that he should go. There is something that must be done with our children, which many of us do not do, and it has to do with teaching God's love, mercy and grace from a practical point of view. (It has been another one of those sleepless nights, so I must ask that you bare with me.) Try to picture what I am trying to say, and imagine those that were not going into the promised land telling their children about the God that they served; instructing them in the mistakes that they had made, and in the ways to do things right. Yes, I know it's a stretch, but if you read the account of what happen in Numbers 14, they had learned a great lesson in obedience; and the ones that did not learn, they were killed by the Amalekites and the Canaanites when they tried to go into the promised land on their own, after God had told them that they would perish in the wilderness for not trusting Him. Do you think they that remained had realized their mistakes? If not, they sure had a good example of what happens when you are not under God's protection. This is something that must be pressed into the heart of our children, that their need for God is never abandoned or taken lightly. One way that we can assure this in their lives, is by making them aware of our mistakes; that we acknowledge the mistake and how it transgressed God, and then show them what we must do to correct it. In the case of the children of Israel, they had to instruct their children on trusting God; having seen the mighty hand of God which delivered them from Egypt, they were now responsible in declaring that deliverance to their children. Okay, maybe again you are not getting the full picture, and I blame myself for the lack to communicate properly. However; if you mess up in something that your children know that you have done wrong in, and then you do not show them the way to correct it, and why that it must be corrected, then how will they understand the importance of being under God's protection?