November 1998 Issue of Woman to Woman

This Months Article:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Sis. Dodie Sailors
Quartz Hill church of Christ

Listen to the news, read the papers, go about your daily lives and you will see it, or I should say, you will see thelack of it. I remember an old song about it, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

When was the last time you heard a mother threaten her misbehaving child with some sort of discipline, even repeating it several times and guess what, nothing happened? Do you remember telling your parents "No" or to "Shut up"? How often or how long would you argue with your parents? Or your parents telling their parents?

What would the consequences have been? Though, I must admit, many parents are probably getting quite nervous about disciplining in public because of certain laws. Look at discipline in sports, try arguing with the coach or referee or umpire, certain consequences would take place, try arguing some more, how soon would you get the message?

Today, children need to see respect in action more than ever or they will never know what it is. There exists such a lack of respect that it is now out of control and in some instances a "sin" or at the very least displeasing to God. It's time to gain back that control if lost, though it will not be easy.

The dictionary describes respect as "esteem for or a sense of worth of a person or personal quality. Being esteemed or honored." A synonym is venerate – to regard with reverence. Respect is a wonderful thing to have.

The actual word respect is found a few times in the Bible, but it is inherently woven in the fear and love of God. It is ever present in God's dealings with man. The teachings of the Bible show us how to revere God, to love God and to fear God. In fact, "fear" is found throughout the Bible many, many times pertaining to God.

God is our heavenly Father but how would we know what a "Father" is or does if God didn't set up fathers on this earth? God is our model father. How did He deal with the children of Israel? In Deut. 28: 1-14, God give a list of blessings he would bestow on his children IF they obeyed and observed all his commands, but in verses 15-68, which is quite very lengthy, he describes what will happen if they disobeyed. Read it again and then continue to read on. God did exactly what he said. He did not play games, nor coerce, it was not a "next time you do it" or a "I shouldn't have made it so hard on you", but it was exactly as he said. It was all for a reason, to protect his children.

How do we protect our children? If there was impending danger we would not hesitate to risk our lives for our children. We try to set a good example. Who is responsible for them?

Remember in 1 Sam 3:11-13, concerning Eli and his sons, when the Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day, I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken….For I told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them." Who did God hold responsible and why? Eli did know what his sons were doing and did nothing about it. How different it would have been had he at least tried and even at that he might have still failed, sometimes no matter what we do, our children will do what they think they must do.

How do children and teenagers see respect in action today? Hopefully among the parents towards each other, but especially parents earning the respect of their children.

There are some very important things to remember. One is to never, never disagree with each other whendisciplining. In fact, agree ahead of time on where the lines are drawn and then support each other. If you don't know where the lines are or constantly shifting them, you can be sure the child knows you don't know and how hard it is to respect wishy-washy. It's not that simple a thing to do sometimes, you have two people that don't
always see eye-to-eye, but unless the discipline is not fit for a human being, one of you must bite your tongue. If you are a Christian couple and love your children, then trust the disciplinarian and support him/her and learn how to be stronger. Fear with love is not a bad thing, else God would not enforce it throughout the Bible. After all, we do trust God completely don't we?

Another thing to remember, we must strive to keep our head out of the sand and if it's already there, take it out now. We have no more time to lose. No one has a perfect child. We need to see our child in all his glory and faults. If you don't know what he needs, then you're useless to help him . If someone approaches you about your child, don't always assume that they're just prejudiced or wrong. No, it doesn't feel good and no one likes it. I
know, I've been there and raising a pre-teen again might lead down that trail. Just remember who it's for, the protection of your child's welfare and possibly his life.

Look for danger signs, like attitude and the friends they're making. Naturally teenagers will experience a somewhat different attitude than what we're use to, but you know your child, don't ignore it. A big danger sign is when your child gets caught at something, or a confession is made from guilt or a godly sorrow for something they did. That's good, their conscience is at work. They're asking for help because they're unable to help themselves.
At this point, you as the parent, must step in else the next time the conscience might not kick in right away.

A teenager can't always do the right thing or be strong enough to resist temptation. What a terrible burden to put on a teen. A parent still needs to be depended on to help them through those times. How sad for a child not to trust their parent to lead them away from the pitfalls, even if the child wants to experience those pitfalls. Stay in touch with your intuitions as a parent, we don't want to make a wrong judgement, but we make judgements all the time, use what you have, common sense and intuition and the Sword of God.

Remember as a child how you depended on your parent to catch you, you trusted them. Does your teenager know if he got into something over his head, you would lead him back? Or did somewhere along the line you started giving in more than you wanted? That slackness was not on purpose. We would never let our child walk into danger on purpose.

Have we forgotten who our adversary is? Does he not stalk night and day? Does he not look for the weak and weary and always wait for the right time, never giving up? I saw a picture of a lion stalking zebras. Three times he tried and three times he was out manuvered, once even kicked, but the lion never gave up. He changed tactics and went for the young one not completely guarded and with no trouble at all, had his prey. Why does the Bible use the roaring lion as an example? To scare us? You better be scared!

Do we still love and fear God? Does our children know we do? Have we earned their respect? We cannot afford to wait one more day to reclaim that respect we may have lost. Your child's life is at stake.

Remember, we do not have to do it alone. We know how much we love our children, how much more God loves them and is always there to give us strength and wisdom in dealing with our children. Let your children know how you feel, let them know you're praying for them, let them see you studying the Bible or have a devotion with them. The word of God is a sword and will work in their lives.

Keep them involved in something, anything, put them to work in some way. What are they working towards? They have talents too, help them cultivate them. How depressing and sad for one not to have any goals and to work towards something. Work builds self-esteem, discipline and guidance and example build trust and respect, respect is one more thread in a child's life that strengthens him to make better decisions and to feel at peace. Children can experience depression and unease just as strong as adults and thus make bad decisions which make it worse. They want someone to help them, though they may not like the cure, they will feel the results and feel good about themselves.

As a congregation, we should do our best to get to know the children, encourage, pat on the back for any thing they do, praise for learning a verse, a picture they made, an answer to a question. Listen when they talk. We all need a just little more R E S P E C T.

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