Typical Scenario:
David is instructed to pray with siblings and start eating lunch while mom finishes folding clothes.
Mom enters the room five minutes later to find no prayers said, a few nibbles out of Bethel and Laurel’s sandwiches, no prayer said, and David trying to keep a grip on his sister’s hand.
When asked why no prayer has been said, David replies, “Laurel is not sitting up in her chair.”
Another typical scenario:
Mom hears Laurel calling for help. When she comes upstairs, Mom asks Bethel (who is standing next to Laurel), “Why didn’t you help your sister?” Bethel answers “Because she wasn’t asking without whining.”
In these scenarios, my children are responding to a sinning sibling by imitating mom and dad’s parenting style. The problem is that mom and dad have a responsibility and authority that children do not have. That makes the “intervention” obnoxious and often ill-received.
So, on the quest to biblically define the problem behavior and motivation, and then biblically identify its replacement, I discovered that my children look remarkably similar to us adult believers when we attempt to correct fellow believers (loving confrontation, of course) without love and grace. This observation is going to help me help them, and I suspect God is going to teach me some lessons as well.
On Monday, I’ll tell you what Scriptures I’ve been sharing and what we’ve been talking about.
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