Parent-Child Commitment

A week ago Sunday, we had the privilege of standing before God, our pastor and a couple thousand people at church to commit our daughter to the Lord and to raise her in His ways. It was both exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Exciting to think about watching Olivia grow into a little girl and someday a young woman, knowing that God has a special plan for her life. Overwhelming to think about the responsibility on us as parents to raise her in the Truth and for us to lead lives that we want her to imitate. A few days before the service, we attended a meeting at church along with all the other families who were going to be committing their children to the Lord along with us. One of the pastors gave a brief admonition to us based on Deuteronomy 6:4-12 and I thought I would share his points:

1. Focus on your commitment to God first - We are going to have a hard time raising a godly daughter if we aren't first committed to God and then to each other, emphasizing the importance of establishing a family pattern of faithfulness (Bible study and worship) and protecting the covenant of our marriage.

2. Determine to demonstrate your faith to your children - We need to put our faith into action and openly in front of our children. It must be seen by them. Furthermore, he stressed the importance of identifying teachable moments - looking for opportunities in day to day life to teach our children about who God is.

3. Be careful in times of blessing - It's really easy when everything is going great to get caught up in the "blessings" so much that we loose focus. This is usually never intentional, but instead creeps up slowly. So we need to always be aware and continually reminding ourselves and teaching our children dependency on Him who provides all things.

Good lesson to mediate on and then put into action. Here are a few pictures from the day: