Sunday 01:19:14

Psalm 127:3, 4 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. There are children growing up without any aim. No one has any expectations of them because the adults around them have either left or are so caught up in their own world that the child is ignored for the most part. Generations have grown up feeling abandoned, forgotten. Dads not around. Or parents too busy. Says to them, "you're unimportant." The emerging generation is the result of growing up in a self-focused world. The result of this is that a large percent of children grew up spending a great deal of time alone or were abused or shuffled off to the side as their parents pursued their own interests. This led to a cynical, lonely, hurt generation with longings for community, healing and fullness. John Burke, No Perfect People The number of children living in single-parent homes has nearly doubled since 1960, according to data from the 2010 Census. Today, 35% of American children – a total of 15 million – are being raised without a father. Nearly five million more children live without a mother. The majority of black children nationwide – 54 percent – are being raised by single mothers. Children without fathers are much more likely to grow up in poverty. While married couples with children enjoy an average income of $80,000, single mothers average only $24,000. Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse, and to engage in criminal behavior than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents. When men leave, children suffer. Period. Leaves women to be provider and caretaker and its too much for anyone. Single parents are becoming the greatest population of unchurched people in the US. Usually no fathers, no influence from the church. 50% of children are growing up in single parent homes. More in some populations. Black families, the number is over 70%. Boys without a father model grow up to men who don't know how to be a husband or a father. Children are sometimes abandoned or brushed off to the side even in families where both mon and dad are around. There are times that we brush off our children, demonstrating to them that we don't have time for them. That communicates to a child that they are unimportant. The wounds that those kids carry can last a lifetime, looking for someone to fill in the empty place that they're parents left. It leads to girls who are looking for boys to make them feel significant. What hope is there for that child who is now an adult, looking for their emptiness to be filled? Their hope is the God who has loved them their whole lives, the God who has seen every tear and heard every cry. Psalm 68:4-6 Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land. Jesus, in the NT, is the one who leaves the 99 to find the wandering lost one. He is the one, the only one with love for you that will finally satisfy your wandering, thirsty soul. He said to the woman at the well who had had 6 men in her life.... John 4:13, 14 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” We've talked about the brokenness of children being treated like they're unimportant. There's been a knee-jerk reaction in our society against this abandonment of children that the child is all-important. Children have become the center of some families. In some families, children are in charge. Both are wrong, both are damaging. One says, "you are unimportant." The other says, "you're all important." When children are more important than marriages, marriages suffer. When marriages suffer, children suffer. One of the most important things a dad can do for his children is to love their mom. One of the most important things a mom can do for her children is to love their dad. Your children are learning what God is like by what they observe in you. That's an incredible responsibility. Your child is learning from you how to relate to God by how they relate to you. It's so important that we treat our children with the same intention as God treats us. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." We are to teach our children how to love God. They will relate to God how they relate to you. Next week, we'll talk about disciplining children.