God in Three Persons
"Learning of how the Godhead works together on our behalf provides a sense of security. Learning of the perfect unity that exists within the Trinity supplies believers with a model…
“Let him labor with his hand that he may have to give to him that needeth.” Eph. 4:48
“Whatsoever they hand findeth to do,do it with thy might.” Ecc. 9:10
“That if any would not work, neither should he eat…” II Thess. 3:10
The idea of working dates back to the garden of Eden. God sent Adam out of the garden with the curse of needing to toil with his hands and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. This responsibility, I believe, is to ever remind man of his relationship to God and how sin has definite consequences.
If you follow the theme of work and responsibility through the Bible, you will find that there is a definite relationship between responsibility and character. One secular writer, when writing about how to get your child to achieve, said, ” If you want your child to get good grades in school give him responsibility at home.” He is right! Responsibility, when carefully given, builds into a child an integrity and worth that praise and play will never accomplish.
We all have work to do, in fact most of us have more work than we can ever accomplish. So, we all know that we need our children to help us, and we know that work is good for them. But how do we teach them to work efficiently, promptly and cheer fully? How do we teach them to work and like it?
A parent who was not taught to work and who does not enjoy it usually is not able to transmit a love for working to his child. Why? The reason is simple. More is caught than taught. When you dig in cheerfully and tackle the project at hand until it is thoroughly done your children notice it. They see that work is not that bad, in fact it can really be fun. Our children s great grandpa always said, “If you enjoy working you can have lots of fun!” And he was right because there is lots of work around.
So, if you do not like to work and recognize that this is the root of the problem you know where to begin. God has promised to give you grace for every situation, and you can still learn how to enjoy working. It is mostly a matter of your mental attitude.
Are you thankful for all these opportunities which God has given you? Have you thought about how things would really be if you did not have these opportunities? Are you willing to change? Learn to work, to like it, and to do it promptly and cheerfully. This is a discipline that you will never regret cultivating. It will strengthen your character and your home. Think of how this will benefit you! Your meals will be on time. Your house will be tidy. (I did not say immaculate.) And your heart will be happy, because every day, all day, you will be doing the things you enjoy.
The next step in teaching responsibility is to train obedient children, As I thought about this subject, and how to share.it with you, the Lord showed me that this is one of the reasons that some of our younger children are not working quite as well as the older ones. I do not have them trained to obey quite as well as I had trained the older children.
Obedience involves doing the will of another promptly, cheerfully and thoroughly. Most of the time my children do my will, but not always promptly, cheerfully or thoroughly. We must train our children to obey with their whole spirit, not just their outward body. A willing spirit makes a child a very good worker. When you say, “Go,” he goes. When you say, “Come,” he comes. Your child will work well for you if you simply take the time to teach him obedience.
My dear mother and father taught me to enjoy working when I was tiny. I have faint memories of standing on a kitchen chair washing dishes at age three and four with a little apron tied around my waist and a towel folded on the front edge of the kitchen sink to help stop the flood. I loved it then and became better at it later. But Mother cultivated my loving to be with her and imitate her. It made her job later much easier. We did the same for our four oldest children, but I’ll have to admit that we have not been as diligent to do the same for the younger ones. Recently, as I have been meditating on struggles that we are having with some of the younger ones, I have come to the conclusion that it is because I have not been diligent in teaching the principles that I taught the older ones. I am admittedly very busy with mothering eight children and homeschooling, not to mention various other responsibilities that the Lord has placed in my lap. But I am convinced that if I want the younger children to grow up the way the older ones have, I will need to take the time to repeat this training and discipline in their lives. Let me share with you a little how we did it.
We begin by teaching the little ones to pick up the toys they are finished playing with before they start playing with other things. They can do this even when they are only 14-18 months old. We get down beside them and help them pick up each toy exclaiming about what a big boy/girl they are and how they are mother’s helpers. They are usually so pleased to do it for you and soon you can count on them to pick up toys easily. Of course, there will come a day when they tell you, ‘No, definitely not,” in a very deter mined sort of voice! That will be the day when you teach them that it is their responsibility. You see, obedience and responsibility go hand in hand. We have found that it does not usually take very long if we begin as soon as they can really walk well and pick up things without falling over. If you wait longer than that, they develop that independent little personality very quickly.
Many times, folks look at children that are well trained and say, ‘My how well behaved those children are.” But you know what, those same people expect more obedience out of their purebred boxer than they do from their two-year-old. Is the dog smarter than the child or have the parents gotten their values somewhat mixed up? Children are very bright and learn much more quickly than most parents know.
The two-year-old can pick up his toys, shut the door, bring a diaper for baby and put the silverware around the table. He can help make his bed and pull a few weeds in the garden. The key here is just a little at a time and lots of blessing.
The threes and fours can take out the tin cans and pick up trash and help clear the table. They can fold washcloths and tea towels and underwear. They love to put away laundry if they become the UPS man and can deliver it to Mrs. Green’s house (the green bedroom) or Mrs.: Bath. Make the jobs into games wherever you can and see what fun you can all have. You will enjoy using your imagination, and the children will love it. They can make their own beds with assistance and hang up their pajamas. They can do some dishes, swaddled in towels with a rug on the floor to catch the overflow. We usually start with breakfast dishes. I often pre-rinse them so that the little one actually has clean dishes when he is done. Remember again, give them small jobs that do not take too long and lots of encouragement.
Fives can set and clear the table and wipe it off. They can work at sweeping the floor but do not expect perfection. Keep your expectations low enough that the small child can easily satisfy you or he will become discouraged. Always spend plenty of time training and blessing the child for a job well done. He can fold the diapers and entertain the baby. He can vacuum his room floor with your guidance and take out the garbage. He can sort laundry and take wet wash to the dryer. He can dust and wipe woodwork to his heart’s content. The busier you keep him the happier he is, if you work with him. Then give him time to play when his chores are done.
Sixes and sevens are great helpers! They can· clean bathrooms if trained and keep their own rooms tidy. They can do laundry in small bites and dishes by turns. They are wonderful baby tenders! They can do most of any small chore around the house and get out simple breakfasts and lunches. I seldom have them do cooking yet. But they love to chop salad and make sandwiches and cut up fruit. They can sweep and dust and clean quite well. They love to rake the leaves, especially if they can jump in the piles a bit later!
At eight, nine and ten these same children can do the above chores, bake, wash the kitchen floor, mow the lawn and do just about anything you’d like them to do, but you still need to carefully oversee them and make sure the job is carried out correctly. This is where good management skills come in very handily. In fact, they are a necessity. I think every mother goes through management training and comes out a whole lot more efficiently if she has a clear vision of where she is going.
Somewhere between eleven and fourteen, depending on the age of your child and the thoroughness of your training, a good, independent worker begins to emerge. You now have a child who loves to work, enjoys seeing the change when he cleans and finds satisfaction in serving and in serving well. This is when the reward period begins! It is worth working for.
Work with your children. If they are washing the dishes; you clean up the counter or dry some dishes. This keeps them accountable to you, and you can give them pointers that will make the job easier and help you oversee them so that the mess does not get out of hand. Clean the rooms together. Fold laundry together. We often will run the wash through the washer and the dryer and let it wait to be folded till school is over for the day. (Yes, I know it is better to fold it right away, but we must do school also. We hang up shirts and dresses immediately to help with the wrinkles)
Then in the afternoon, we get it all together and we all sit down and fold it and the little ones deliver it by piles to the right rooms. Someone could read aloud, or you could listen to a tape together while doing this. We can get it done in a hurry that way and we can all work together.
If you have a garden everyone from five and up can help to pull the weeds. A bit of instruction and some oversight is all that it takes. Picking beans and potato bugs and pulling weeds are things that even young children can do in the garden with you. Gardens provide lots of opportunities to teach lessons to stick to one’s job even though you are hot and tired or muddy, or your back hurts! Gardens give you a tangible reward in the form of food or flowers and most children love to garden because of this.
Remember, when Mom is just sitting reading there is no incentive to stick to work. So, work beside your child and he will surprise you with his abilities.
Diligence and thoroughness are two essential virtues to teach as you train them to work. A job that is dawdled around at and not done right is no blessing to anyone. If you get too lazy to train them to be diligent you will pay for it dearly. I know from experience. I am having to retrain a youngster that I did not take the time to teach diligence .to. I was too busy to do it then! Hmm! Now I have to do it anyway and it is harder than if I had done it right the first time. I said to that child the other day, ‘Do you know that I have been as lazy as you?” He looked very surprised, because I am not a lazy person by nature. ”Yes, I have been lazy and have not taken the time to train you correctly and now you are lazy. Now you and I will have to work together to change this so neither of us suffer.” It was amazing how quickly that child responded and we are definitely making progress. So, remember that it really pays to do your job right the first time.
The older ones can also teach your younger ones new skills. That is if you have them trained to do it patiently and in love. This can be a very great asset to a busy mother. When one child has mastered a job well, let him teach a younger child to do that job. It is great training for parenthood. But stay close by and keep an ear tuned to the teaching scene so that the younger child shows respect to the older one and see.to it that the older one is patient and kind while he is teaching. It keeps you on your toes. There is never a dull moment when you have a house full.
These little people keep us on our toes.
We have gotten to the reward stage of our life. The older children, 17, 16, 13 and 10 can take over and run the place in my absence. They can clean up and get ready for company in a flash. They can make special dishes in the kitchen and bake bread to sell. They can watch the children and give us a night out occasionally. The challenging part of this is: The older children are doing so well that somehow, I must make room to teach the younger ones the work that the older ones are doing. And I noticed with surprise that I was not doing this. I was putting off the inevitable! Why? I am extremely busy and being of an efficient nature, I was naturally trying to get the work done as quickly and well as possible and so it was delegated to the oldest ones. But that has given us a deficit. The younger ones do not know how to work nearly as well as the older ones did at their age. So, where do we go from here?
First it has taken a commitment on my part to change. It has taken a willingness to go through all the nine yards of teaching over again, no matter whether I am busy or not. I must see that these little ones of mine, vessels whom God would use, will never be worthy vessels unless sanctified and meet for the Master’s use. They must learn many of the disciplines needed for a life of service in the home through working. Therefore, it is not only that I have work that needs to be done, but that I have children that need to learn to work. So, what will we do, practically speaking, to correct our dilemma?
We have decided to cultivate other skills in our older children, such as sewing and baking for sale or vocational skills. This occupies them profitably and allows the younger ones to do the work the older ones were doing. It takes patience on my part. Once again, I must deal with improperly swept floors and dirty dishes left in the comer. The wash is not getting done as well as it had. I need to spend more time teaching and that takes time. But if I have a long-range vision, I will be able to hang in there until I get the job done again, and again, and again!
Sometimes as I look at the long haul (baby is only three months old) I get weary and wonder if I will really be able to do this for twenty more years! But my mind is drawn to the verse, “He giveth more grace.” Also, Isaiah says, “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children…” Is. 54:13 This verse has been a real comfort to me over the last few days.
Yes, we will be able to make it. Yes, our children will come through, for they shall be taught of the Lord, if our own lives are in tune with Him. How I want to walk with God every day and be in the attitude of rejoicing and prayer. What a difference that will make in our home! If I do my work (child rearing and training) with joyfulness and diligence, then our children will do their work well.
“…and great will be the peace of our children…”
and great will be the peace of our home!
This article was originally published by The Heartbeat of The Remnant magazine – Nov/Dec. 1995
