“And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of The Lord.” Ephesians 6:4 AKJV
Father, to nurture seems to mean to… care for… caringly…
To admonish seems to mean, to correct, to critique, to counsel… with unwavering authority… but caringly as well.
It seems that in Your Word of council to a father of children, You desire that what needs to be done in their raising should be done in the spirit of caring… that the good and well being of the child is the main concern even when the degree of action can require rebuke, a rod of discipline… even when the lesson that has to be learned requires they suffer consequences that a Dad could soften or save them from… but yet he won’t.
You provide the knowledge for a proper raising up of our children, but sometimes we make mistakes before we catch on… seek it and apply it.
Sometimes, even when we know Your Ways, we don’t follow them fully… because of the time and effort it would require, because of subtle pridefulness about being questioned, sometimes because it is just hard to do and we are not getting the results we want as quickly as we want… or at all.
Our children grow up. They make their own choices, some of which are good and some really not so good at all. But it would be a mistake to say that, as fathers, in their raising, we had no influence in what those choices made, ended up being.
That’s why we pray You for the wisdom to search Your Word… to get the guidance we need, to get understanding and skill to nurture and admonish rightly, caringly… to learn to exercise our authority without wavering but in a spirit that is understood to be one of genuine love and care… not out of pridefulness or arrogance that probably should be humility in a master serving… even when we know that understanding may not come till down the road a bit.
Teach us balance, Father, we pray, between the gentle and the hard, the much and the little as we correct and instruct…teach us balance between correction and praise, punishment and reward… teach us balance between time apart and intimate, attentive time together.
Teach us …as You are with us… so we are with them.
You are so good…Abba Dear Father…
Father… Father… in Yeshua’s name we pray…
Amen.
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