Making Life Grand

This has been an exceptional month for me! I’ve had the privilege of spending all, or part, of nineteen days with one or more of my grandchildren. There’s only one word to describe how I feel: blessed. Yes. Blessed.

Seriously, thisYaya’s heart is full! However, the more time I spend with my grandchildren, the more I appreciate my sons and daughters-in-law.

My daughters-in-law do a wonderful job of raising their children. They spend quality and quantity time teaching numbers, colors, letters, walking, words, table manners, and everything else a child must learn!

They pour over homework lessons: maths, spellings (yes, the British put an ‘s’ on the end), and reading. They take their children to lessons: swim, music, karate, guitar, soccer/football, cricket, and gymnastics. They attend library, community, and neighborhood events and my grandchildren love to participate in everything.

And my sons – they are fully engaged with housework, cooking, laundry, baths and diapers. They schlep car seats and strollers through airports, festivals, and back-and-forth from car to car. They play, they chase, and they cuddle with their children. This generation is more hands-on than ever before.

It is not easy raising children today. I think it is a lot harder than when I was a young mom. And I think it was harder for me than for my parents. Every generation seems to have more things to worry about – more dangers to be aware of.

As hard and as busy as parenting has become, one thing hasn’t changed since the very first child was born to the very first couple: the most important responsibility a parent has is to introduce their children to God. Why? Because God has no grandchildren.

Each generation is responsible to train the next generation about God. Each person in each generation is responsible for his or her own choice to accept or reject Jesus as his or her Savior.

Parents cannot drag their children into faith; every single person must make that decision for his or her own self. We can pray, we can live out our faith, we can set examples and we can take our children to church; but we cannot make anyone a Christian, we cannot make them children of God.

There is only one way that anyone gets into the family of God and that is through a personal relationship with Jesus. No one is a Christian simply because his parents or grandparents are or were. No one is a Christian because someone else prayed for him or her to receive Christ. Salvation is a personal choice and an individual commitment.

Each person is responsible for his or her own decision to trust Jesus for salvation. Only then, is adoption into the family of God accomplished. Until then, we are children of the world, enslaved by it.

We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a women, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. – Galatians 4:3b-7 NLT

We were born physically into our families, and we must be born spiritually into God’s family. It makes no sense to think that someone could be physically born on our behalf – just as it makes no sense to think that someone could be born spiritually on our behalf.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’” – John 3:3, 5-7 NLT

As a Christian, and as a parent, there were a lot of times I failed, and many things I regret. However, the greatest joy of my life is knowing that I didn’t fail to introduce my children to the Savior, and that they chose to identify with him in saving faith.

I know that as busy as my children are, they are doing an excellent job of finding time and opportunities to introduce my grandchildren to Jesus, and they are setting a good example of what it means to walk with him.

As a grandparent who is blessed to spend time with her grandchildren, I hope they will see in me what it means to walk with God. I hope I will be a good example of how to rest in God, how to learn from him and be guided by him, and how to trust him no matter the circumstances.

Our children and grandchildren must choose for themselves whether or not to follow and serve God, our responsibility is to introduce him both by our words and our lives. What are you doing today to introduce the people you love to the Lord you love?

Choose today whom you will serve. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. – Joshua 24:15 NLT

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