| Home Making |
Chapter 5 |
Page 7 |
We have only to remember again who Jesus was. Was there ever any human parent in this world who was really worthy or capable, in this sense, to be his teacher, to guide and control his life? Was there ever, in any home on earth, such a distance between parents and child as there was in that home at Nazareth? Yet this Son of God, with all his wisdom, his knowledge, his grandeur of character, did not hesitate to submit himself to the training of that peasant mother and that peasant father. Shall any other child, in view of this model child life at home, assert that he is too far advanced, to much superior in knowledge and culture, too wise and intelligent; to submit to the parents God has given him? If Christ could be taught and trained by his lowly parents for his glorious mission, where is the true parent who is not worthy to be his own child’s guide and teacher?
This, then, is the part of every child in the home life. This is the way in which children can do the most to make the home true and happy. It is the part of the parents to guide, to train, to teach, to mould the character. God holds them responsible for this. They must qualify themselves to do it. Then it is the part of the children to accept this guidance, teaching, training and shaping at the parents’ hands. When both faithfully do their part the home life will be a sweet song of love; where either fails there will be discordant life, and the angel of blessing will not leave his benison of peace.
Such, in general, is the central feature of the children’s part in the home life – to recognize their parents as the head and to yield to them in all things. This is not meant to make them slaves. The home-life I am depicting is ruled by love; the parental authority is exercised in love; it seeks only the highest good of each child; it asks nothing unreasonable or unjust. If it withholds things that a child desires, it is either because it is not able to grant them or because the granting of them would work injury rather than benefit. If it seeks to guide the tender feet in a way that is not the chosen way, nor the easiest and pleasant way, it is because a riper wisdom sees that it is the best way. True parental guidance is love grown wise. It is an imitation of God’s government. He is our Father and we are his children. We are to obey him absolutely and without question. Yet it is no blind obedience. We know that he loves us with a love deep, tender, unchanging. We know that he is wiser than we, infinitely wiser, and can never err. We know that when he denies a request the granting of it would be unkindness; when he leads us in another path than the one we had marked out, his is the right way; when he chastens or corrects there is love in his chastisement or correction. We know that in all his government and discipline he is seeking only our highest good. Our whole duty therefore as God’s children is to yield ourselves to his will. True human parenthood is a faint copy of the divine, and to it direction and guidance children are to submit.
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