Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, mcAlester, OK
April 16, 2012

“One Big Happy...”
”Here are some proverbs of Solomon: Children with good sense make their parents happy, but foolish children make them sad.” – Proverbs 10:1

We have now covered nine chapters and commented on 256 verses…and we are not quite a third of the way through the book of Proverbs! Imagine the possibilities before us as we continue our journey through this incredible source of spiritual insight and understanding!
Chapter ten starts out with an issue that is near and dear to my heart…Children!! More importantly…Godly children!
I am a parent…no great revelation there…and I am also a grand-parent, something that I have discovered to be God’s way of redeeming all the mistakes I made as a parent as well as erasing all of the heartaches my children caused me and my wife as they were growing up.
I would venture to guess that most parents have certain “goals” and/or hopes for their children. I would like to think that I as would every parent would want our children to make good choices—that they be successful in school or in life—that they would find their life’s partner and create for themselves a family and keep the cycle going. But most importantly, my highest hopes for my children and now grandchildren is that they find their place in God’s Kingdom and serve Him with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength, just as I have attempted to do throughout my entire adult life. That is and should be the ultimate goal for every Christian parent—to lead their children into a personal relationship with Christ!
Did my children always make the best (or right) decisions? No. I can honestly say that on many occasions growing up their judgments were clouded by their immaturity—by their innate human desires as well as by their search for independence. They were, after all, children and as children they were prone to make mistakes—mistakes that hopefully served as a springboard toward maturity. I can recall a couple of occasions where we sat with one of our children crying with them after an episode in their young lives caused their hearts (and ours) to break.
As I was contemplating this, the last thing I would want anyone to think is that I was a perfect parent. That I was mistake-free during my children’s formative years. Nothing could be further from the truth. I made my share of mistakes and I am honest enough to own up to that fact.
However, what I would like to think is that we created an atmosphere of love, an environment of acceptance and Godly instruction so that when faced with a choice or decision that had to be made—there would be no question or doubt what that decision would be. Did they always make that decision? Since we could not be with our children 24 hours a day I would venture to say there were moments and times when their choices were less than honorable or righteous. I can say with some degree of certainty that even as adults they continue to make choices and decisions that I would disagree with.
But I can say this with no hesitation, our children made us happy! And the reason for that is this—they all decided to choose Christ. Despite my many human mistakes—my own lack of proper judgment at times—I and my wife created an environment that led them to desire a personal relationship with the Savior! And we are eternally grateful and thankful for that. In the 1990’s a song was released that has one of the best “parental” lines of all times. It was written and performed by Bob Carlisle. Carlisle's rendition of the song entered five different Billboard format charts in the United States, becoming a Number One single on the Adult Contemporary chart. The song also received a Dove Award (the Christian Music awards) for Song of the Year, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Country Song. Here is the line that I love: “Oh with all that I've done wrong I must have done something right; To deserve her love every morning, And butterfly kisses at night.”
Regardless of how old you are or how old your children are—we still have a responsibility to create an atmosphere to hopefully help our children and even our grandchildren make good, Godly choices and decisions.
Pastor J. T. Carnell