Parents: Train Your Children at Home

Maybe before I dive in, just a word, seems like I hear, I understand when I hear children cry who are obviously infants and newborns. Some of the voices of children that I hear crying out are children who are old enough to be trained not to do that. And parents, if you notice families that have little children that are able to sit all the way through the service without having a tantrum, I will guarantee you they did not train them to do that here. They did that at home. And one of the things you want to do is have devotions at home and train your children to sit still and train your children not to throw tantrums. And train your children in that context, so that when you come here, when you give your child that certain look or that certain word, they've been trained, and they recognize that mom and dad are serious and there's a time to play, there's a time to be loud, and there's a time not to be. But that gets instilled at home. And when I hear children's voices who are at the age to be trained, and they are making such noises toward the parent that is an obvious, open, defiant cry of that child, that is the kind of thing you want to train and discipline out of your children at home. So, yes, it takes discipline as parents to discipline your children, to bring them to that place. It takes doing this at home. It takes you being consistent in having devotions at home, and it takes consistency in disciplining your children so that you get them to that place. Anyway, it just seems like today, I don't know why it's hitting my ears, but when you were speaking this morning... You know, we do encourage having the children in here, so we are always having a fair degree of background children noises, but it just seemed today it was extra loud. Anyway, I thought maybe that would just be a good encouragement. To parents, if you have little children, and you're not having regular family devotional times, that in itself is something that you want to give yourself to - training your children spiritually yourselves. But also, it's an opportunity to instill a discipline, a good, healthy discipline into your children. I'm all for having my kids wild when it's time to be wild, but when it's time to sit still... I mean, I like good, aggressive games, and I don't know how it is in your homes, but we often had lots of crazy moments. But the moment you as a parent say, "Ok, all over, shut down, we all need to be still now." They should all be able to do that without throwing a tantrum. Ok, well that was chasing a rabbit... Let's pray...