As a parent of a six-year-old and a four-year-old I am impressed with how much teaching and instruction must be done. Yet are there any two lessons more vital and foundational than the two matters I have been assigned to discuss in this article?

The first part speaks to the issue of where we came from and what we are here for. The second part of my assignment affects the core concern of how to live the life in front of us. How can parents properly teach their children these crucial concepts?

Turn your attention to think about God as Creator. The book of Genesis and its amazing story of speaking worlds and life into existence springs to mind.

How awesome God is! All of us need to regularly read Genesis 1 and 2 and be deeply impressed with the incredible power of God.

However, for parents another crucial lesson emerges from the story of how this world began. When we read that God created Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:26-27), we immediately realize that this God has authority over all humans.

That is one of the most fundamental lessons of the Creation and why I believe the Bible begins where it does. Since God made us, He has the right to command and expect our obedience. In this sense, we are no different from anything else God made: we were created to serve the Lord and do His bidding.

Obviously, in other ways we are far different from the rest of creation. We, unlike anything else in creation, have a soul. We possess free will and can choose to obey the Lord. However, this does not detract at all from the basic lesson of creation: God made us, He made us for a purpose (to serve and glorify Him) and we must do as God says. He is the Creator and we are not (see Rom. 9:20-21).

This is why it is so important that parents continually reinforce that God is the Maker of everything and everyone. The simple lesson that God made everything is the first step in establishing God’s authority in the minds of our children. Truly, the key matter that will decide our children’s eternal destiny is simply “Do they respect God’s authority?” Answer “yes” and everything else will fall perfectly into place. Answer “no” and nothing else will ever be right.

Allow me a moment, please, to point out the danger of evolution. Evolution is destructive to faith precisely because it robs us of belief in God’s authority. If God did not make us, who is He to tell us what or how to do?

How do parents teach that God is the Creator? It is done simply by constantly talking about it. There is a puppy. “Who made it?” we ask. Here is a tree, or a mountain or a stream. “Who made it?” we ask again and again and again. By talking about the Lord’s work, the truth about the Lord is driven home.

However, beyond God as Creator we want our children to know that God is still active in sustaining our lives. He did not wind the world up and let it go, never to intervene again. In a world of doubt, difficulty and confusion it is vital that our children know that God continues to help and care for His children. He provides the way of escape from every temptation (1 Cor. 10:13), blesses us with every blessing we need to be faithful (Eph. 1:3), cares for us like no one else (1 Peter 5:7), and loves us beyond our ability to know or comprehend (John 3:16). This is our God. He is not tired and He has not retired! He has promised to continue to help us along this journey to His house.

While we may feel that we have done a good job of teaching God as Creator, many might have to confess some failure with this second lesson. Sometimes we are afraid that we will sound “charismatic” or “liberal” if we give God the credit for the good in our lives, or announce that we believe God is still active on behalf of His children. Yet we did not borrow these ideas from teachers of error. They came from the Bible: “Every good gift and every prefect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17).

It seems to me that this great lesson may be imparted to children most effectively by how we pray. In our prayers we can express gratitude for blessings, rather than taking credit to ourselves for our accomplishments.

When we pray we can humble ourselves before God and acknowledge Him as the Giver of every good thing. In prayer we can show our dependence upon Him for everything, and powerfully teach our children that there is One greater than even mother and daddy. To this One even parents must turn for help in this life. Our prayer life will show whether we truly believe that God hears our cries and helps us as a father helps his own children. Are we teaching this lesson in prayer?

If I can teach my children that God made them (so they must obey Him) and that God continues to care for them, I will have gone a long way toward raising my children to become His children. May the Lord bless us all in this noble endeavor.

- The Preceptor, April 1996