What's in a name?
Our culture doesn't think a whole lot about the meanings of names. In the past, though, people gave a lot of thought to naming their children. God even renamed a few people in the bible. Remember Abram and Sarai, for example? And how about King David's wife, Abigail. Her first husband's name was Nabal. That means "fool". Do you think his parents were excited about having him in the family? Uh-ya.
Well, as our kiddos are in their tween years and moving toward adulthood, I have been fascinated by the value of a name, by honor, and by the customs and traditions mostly forgotten by many in our Western Civilization.
What brought this on? Well, as I've been researching the bar/bat barakah (a rite of passage ceremony... I'll be writing more on this later) I read a fantastic book titled "Raising a Modern-Day Knight" by Robert Lewis. Although this book is written to fathers for their sons, I didn't think Mr. Lewis would mind if I gave it a peek, too. And I'm glad I did.
First of all, if you were asked the question, "What is a man?" how would you answer that? Mr. Lewis does it here:
A real man:
- Rejects passivity
- Accepts responsibility
- Leads courageously
- Expects a greater reward (not immediate gratification)
Wow. How many men do you know that are like that? (Thank you Jesus that I'm married to one!)
Also, I think we as parents need to make the responsibility of raising our children to be godly adults the absolute number one parenting priority. I find it interesting how many people think that raising a child is the responsibility of the "village". But did the "village" give birth to your child? Did the "village" show up when your child was running a temperature in the middle of the night? You get the picture.
So how do we do this? Well, I'm not an expert. We've got our two children still living at home. But I will tell you this, I think the first way is spending a lot of time on our knees and in His Word. God loves it when we ask Him for His advice. We are such capable people that we tend to "lean on our understanding", and use God for when things get tough. I'm trying to remember to ask Him first...
But I also think we need to have a vision of our intended outcome. What character traits do we want our children to have as adults? To me, that is FAR more important than which college (if any!) they go to.
My husband's and my end game? To purposefully lead our children into adulthood to:
-Live pure
-Speak truth
-Right wrong
-Honor the King
It's a big task and honestly, it's certainly intimidating to me. But if you have children like we do, obviously God thought you were up to the challenge.
 |
| Get it here... |
Our culture doesn't think a whole lot about the meanings of names. In the past, though, people gave a lot of thought to naming their children. God even renamed a few people in the bible. Remember Abram and Sarai, for example? And how about King David's wife, Abigail. Her first husband's name was Nabal. That means "fool". Do you think his parents were excited about having him in the family? Uh-ya.
Well, as our kiddos are in their tween years and moving toward adulthood, I have been fascinated by the value of a name, by honor, and by the customs and traditions mostly forgotten by many in our Western Civilization.
What brought this on? Well, as I've been researching the bar/bat barakah (a rite of passage ceremony... I'll be writing more on this later) I read a fantastic book titled "Raising a Modern-Day Knight" by Robert Lewis. Although this book is written to fathers for their sons, I didn't think Mr. Lewis would mind if I gave it a peek, too. And I'm glad I did.
First of all, if you were asked the question, "What is a man?" how would you answer that? Mr. Lewis does it here:
A real man:
- Rejects passivity
- Accepts responsibility
- Leads courageously
- Expects a greater reward (not immediate gratification)
Wow. How many men do you know that are like that? (Thank you Jesus that I'm married to one!)
Also, I think we as parents need to make the responsibility of raising our children to be godly adults the absolute number one parenting priority. I find it interesting how many people think that raising a child is the responsibility of the "village". But did the "village" give birth to your child? Did the "village" show up when your child was running a temperature in the middle of the night? You get the picture.
So how do we do this? Well, I'm not an expert. We've got our two children still living at home. But I will tell you this, I think the first way is spending a lot of time on our knees and in His Word. God loves it when we ask Him for His advice. We are such capable people that we tend to "lean on our understanding", and use God for when things get tough. I'm trying to remember to ask Him first...
But I also think we need to have a vision of our intended outcome. What character traits do we want our children to have as adults? To me, that is FAR more important than which college (if any!) they go to.
My husband's and my end game? To purposefully lead our children into adulthood to:
-Live pure
-Speak truth
-Right wrong
-Honor the King
It's a big task and honestly, it's certainly intimidating to me. But if you have children like we do, obviously God thought you were up to the challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment