When Parental Guidance Slumps To Parental Negligence

-Whether you realize it or not, children want well-defined boundaries in their lives.

Years ago, when Ann Landers and Dear Abby would dispense advice a letter came in one day to Abby.

Dear Abby,

My problem is my mother. She’s too lenient! After she gets angry and punishes me, she often will apologize. Why should she, when I had the punishment coming? Signed, Mixed-Up In Cleveland.

Abby replied,

Dear Mixed-Up,

Your mother (like many others) fears you will love her less because she has punished you. (She’s wrong.) No child has ever resented punishment he knew he had coming. Discipline is “proof” of love, . . . Children “know” this. I wish more parents did. Signed, Abby (Michael Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, p. 43)

-Well defined boundaries often create well defined citizens!

B. Jacob At Shechem

-But the story does not end there in Succoth. Of lesser importance but something that whittled my curiosity a bit was the meaning of the name of Succoth. It means booths. Something that is transient and portable. Here was Jacob trying to build something permanent in a place that was temporary.

-Then more progresses in this story. We move to a place called Shechem. It is not clear in Scripture exactly how long that Jacob lived in Succoth but it is probably safe to say that he lived there long enough for his children to grow into their later teenage years.

-In fact, the years there transformed his little pig-tailed daughter, Dinah, into a graceful young lady.

-We find Jacob putting a tent up in the direction of a city. Jacob bought some property from a man named Hamor and it would be a business dealing that would change the life of his young daughter forever.

-One of the most crucial times in a parent’s life is when you are trying to choose which city toward which you will pitch the direction of your tent. God had already identified Himself to Jacob as “I am the God of Bethel.”

-Bethel was the appointed place for Jacob to be but instead, he was far too easily convinced to stop short of God’s plan of blessing and destiny for his life. There are many parents who are trapped in this same plight in our generation.

-They live on the edge of the world, just on the borders of spiritual things. They want the blessings of both worlds. A spiritual blessing is what is necessary. However, just close enough to the world to venture out periodically and listen to the siren call of the world.

1. Please Don’t Check In Your Brains At the Back Door!

-Think, Think, Think, Think about the temptations and the dangers that will come from the choices in life that you will make.

• Open your eyes and count the cost.

• Take time over that choice.

• Seek the wisdom of elders in that choice.

• Imagine that you have retired from that choice in life and what effect did it have upon your own soul.

• Don’t just evaluate the successes of that choice but also the failures of others who have made those same choices.

-In raising our children we must think about the choices for jobs, for commitment in marriages, for commitment in families, for commitment to a church. Think, Think, Think. . . .