You've Got a Friend in Me

Anyone from 7th - 12th grade and a few years either side of that recognizes the song lyric "You've Got a Friend in Me" from any of the Toy Story movies. In themselves they are pretty good entertainment, and they leave us with that statement of friendship that either we can relate to or we can struggle with.

Throughout history we (man) attach ourselves to people that are our peers and whether we are only tied to them because we share a classroom with them for the better part of our lives, or we share backyards with them through our childhood; we call them our friends.

Neither one of these two scenarios are bad in themselves, but if we really look at the Biblical model that we should take we should look within the home first and foremost.

Now I know that some people might try to argue, "Well my home life isn't great, I don't have great example that I can follow." Point taken. Obviously that observation has been made, and you've come to the point of acknowledging you need a better example. You wouldn't know that what you live in is a bad example if you haven't already witnessed a good example. Go to that good example.
There might be a family that you can connect with better than you own, great! I'm not telling you to abandon your family, but I am saying that if Godly counsel is not in your home, look for it the closest place you can find it.

Now parents this is for you: We are called to Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

That means that our relationship with our children has to be one that we know what is going on with them, we have to know their needs, their dreams, their struggles. And the hard part of that we may not can do anything about it. We may not can help fulfill those dreams, defeat those struggles, or meet those needs, but we serve a God who can.

Dad and mom, we are called to "Train" not raise, or rear even. (Which I know that rear is correct grammer) If we call on the Lord as our King, we are called to train our children up. So many times we just throw the blame of what they do against the scale of their age, and what does that do? It takes the blame off of us. What if we took responsibility for our child's actions, answered for them, and we had to pay the penalty? In our opinion that would royally stink. But that is what God is telling us through His word. He is telling us that it is our responsibility to teach our children how to live, and we do that by preparing them to be worshipers of the King.

Some of you parents might not relate to this. Some of you may say, I didn't get that as a child. Fine, you didn't get it, but you say that you are a Christian now. Then follow the word now!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if we are in Christ, know Him as Lord in a personal way, then we are a new creature through Him. Everything before that doesn't matter anymore. So if you were raised in a Christian home, but you are a Christian parent you are under obligation to pour into your child the ways of the Lord, not the ways of your parents no matter if they are Mr. Deacon, and Mrs. GA's or Mr. Drunk, and Mrs. Harlot.

We have to befriend our children, where they come to us before the run to their peers when they need guidance. Most people think that if we need to befriend our children it means that we need to entertain them, and their friends. Or we need to try to impress them with our style, or what we allow them to do/get away with. It doesn't matter what age, children will always be able to entertain themselves, and we need to impress in them the things of God, and guide them in the ways of God. We have to take every opportunity to pour into them the ways of God, rooted in the word of God. And going back to the statement I made about tossing blame on the age scale, the term Teenager is less than 100 years old. Technically my grandparents where never teenagers, according to society. (It was used in around 1938 for the first time during the Great Depression) Before that we used more of a Biblical model from childhood to manhood/womanhood.

We as society have tossed the idea of Training our children to be Biblical men and women. That is why they would rather go to talk to their friends that they make outside the home about their struggles, their needs, their dreams.

We need to win our children back to training them to be men and women for the Kingdom.

There are 2 resources that I have found that would be a good help, other than the Bible of course:

Raising a Modern-Day Joseph - Larry Fowler
Parenting with a Kingdom Purpose - Ken Hemphill & Richard Ross