Leading Children To True Peace

You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it;

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and contrite heart,

O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51:10-11

King David wrote this psalm after God sent Nathaniel to confront him. God has so much mercy to go to David even though he was not repentant yet. You would think David would be out on the streets after committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband killed on the front lines of the war to cover it up. But God made sure David knew his sin was not as big as God’s merciful love.

I have those same sins of hate, lust, jealousy, bitterness, etc. in my own heart. We all do—parents and children. We naturally try to deal with our own guilt and our children’s guilt by making up for it or denying it. 

But God is real—the most real person we will ever know.

He knows how we fail him in our thoughts and ways.

He does not expect that we come to him with excuses or some type of payment to get off the hook.

He just wants us to be real with him.

Our sacrifice to him is to be totally honest with him about everything that he already knows—all the hurt we have caused our Father who gave his Son to die for us so he could be with us forever.

God won’t despise our honest confession, even though we have failed him greatly. He is so eager to give us the peace that comes from his forgiveness for all the bad we have done in thought and in action.

That truth gives true peace to hurting families.

We don’t have to teach our children to take crazy, ineffective actions to escape their guilt.

We simply and honestly tell them about our own need for the forgiveness of Jesus.

God wants our goal for disciplining our children to be the same as he has for us: that our children feel safe enough in his love to be honest with him about their own sins.

They should know beyond any doubt that they are totally forgiven and unconditionally loved by God himself.

Jesus wants our children to come to him. He wants us to share his truth and love for them through his Words in the Bible.

He wants to listen to their honest prayers.

God wants every family to have the perfect peace that is theirs because he died to give it to us.

A Daily Prayer:
Dear Jesus, we are so grateful that you invite us to be honest with you. Give us trust in your forgiving love. Help us to find ways today to share your gift of salvation with our children. Amen.