Six Things... Actually Seven #3

According to Proverbs 6:16-19 there are six things, no, wait... seven things that God hates. As a father of two young kids this next one is really hitting home.

#3 Hands that Kill the Innocent

It's obvious by just watching the news or internet news feeds that the world is just crazy and children are exploited and mistreated all over the world. Abuse, malnutrition, sex trade, slavery, extreme poverty... all of those are a sad, sad reality for children everywhere.

But something a little closer to home is hitting me as a middle-class Canadian dad.

How do I, as a dad, kill the innocence in my children??? No. Really. Is there anything that I do in my life that kills their innocence?

In Luke 17:2 Jesus said that it's better to be thrown into the sea with a large rock tied around your neck than causing a little child to fall into sin. That's a pretty tough statement! In our culture today, kids are exposed to so many things that they really shouldn't have access to. The games, the TV shows, the movies... it seems like they just get exposed to the violence and sexually content earlier and earlier every generation.

Just last night, I had decided to take my 8 year old son to see Avatar... and a part of me wonders this morning, just how much of his innocence was "killed" last night... seeing how bad people can, how we exploit people for our own greed.

Maybe I'm reading too much into these little verse... but my children are the most important thing in my life. God gave them to me to care and nurture and to see them grow into a godly man and godly woman. I pray each day that I'm not a part of killing their innocence, but rather that God's love and grace would be very clear to them because they saw it in their earthly father.

How about you dads? How are you reflecting the love of God into your kids?

Comments

Joel Bennett said…
Glad you are thinking about this stuff...wish more dad's did.
8:17 AM
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