I sat on the floor with my three year old son, surrounded my thousands and thousands of little LEGO pieces. “Wow!”, I thought to myself, “this is a pretty daunting task!” We were attempting to rebuild my X-Wing LEGO starfighter from 1999. The problem was that the X-Wing pieces had been mixed in with thousands and thousands of other loose pieces. Bummer.
It requires a LOT of patience to build something like that! You need to keep your eye on the instruction book while at the same time keep an eye on what you are building and never lose focus of the end result- that you are trying to build something special.
As we tried to put that spaceship back together, I realized something. Raising kids takes a lot of patience too! As my wife and I parent Joshua and Rebecca, we need to keep our eyes on our instruction book (the Bible) and also keep an eye on the unique children we are raising. We also need to remember that we are doing something special here: we aren’t just trying to raise good, moral kids. We want to raise kids that become adults who are passionate followers of Jesus. Adults who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do Kingdom work. Adults who use their gifts and talents to help make disciples who make disciples. Adults who become godly parents themselves someday and continue this great heritage of faith that my wife and I inherited from our parents.
But today, its enough to acknowledge that raising kids takes a TON of patience! We may not have all the pieces… but its OK. God is helping us form and shape these little angels/monsters into beautiful works of art.
Its enough for today.
ERIK LINDEEN 