Part Two
What is a parent? A parent is a co-creator of life over which he struggles with a combination of responsibility for what he has produced and the subjective temptation to make that life an extension of himself irrevocably. Thus a parent is one who produces, but does not know how to let go of the life that has come forth from his loins.
A parent is a candidate for dedication. And with the advent of a new life that is laid in the mother’s arms, there is the necessity of nurturing and launching that life and then cutting the mooring line free.
The success of the parent depends upon how well he does his work: that is, how well he works in the home-life with the child. More parents have failed through intensive effort than from neglect. When a parent really loves subjectively, he can easily smother the life of what is produced.
A parent produces and trains and sees a new life come forth, for which he has shared responsibility with God. A parent is one who sees how the genes were mingled in the co-creation of a human being, and then he begins to worry about his own input into the flesh nature of that child.
A parent is one who produces a child with the mingled emotions of pride and of condemnation. A parent sees pride in the extension of himself, and he faces the awfulness of condemnation because he has perpetuated himself in his basic weaknesses also. Being a parent can be the result of accidental, emotional expression—but the product has an eternal consequence.
A parent is one who condemns his child for the child’s sins, but refuses to face the fact that the greater sins are really his own. The parent is both blind and seeing. He is blind to his own faults and neglects of the child, but he is very perceptive of the child’s failures to measure up to the standards imposed on him.
The parent is the nearest thing resembling God Himself that He has set upon this world. Every parent should look to God and read His Word to see how the Heavenly Father brought forth, sustained and loved, redeemed, developed, and created a new creation; and so should the parent do also. The termination of a pregnancy results in parenthood, but that parenthood is only initiated. A true parent does not produce only a developed fetus; a true parent produces a developed person.
A parent is one who succumbs to the pride of tradition when he fails in the art of creation. After a child is born, the truth must be established in his mind, as well as in the parent’s, that there is a purpose and a plan for his life.
The first principle of the Kingdom which a parent must realize is that a child can be formed and brought to his destiny, more by one thought of faith on the part of the parent than by all of the input of heredity and environment.
A parent may feel his responsibility for the housing, the warmth, the food, and the clothing for a child; and having done all of this, he still can have very likely failed. For a parent is one who creates the mystical housing of love and faith, of restraint, of encouragement, of opening new doors and pointing to sunsets and sunrises until the child has been housed in the mystical structure of God, and until the time of His appearing to the world.
A home is like a desert that deprives the child of his worldly indulgences; it limits how much candy, how many sweets, he eats. But the answer is not in restraint. The answer is in the impetus of love that causes the child to rise, look about him, and prepare to conquer, withstand, or coexist with many things without losing his own development as a person brought forth on this earth for the will of God, with a destiny to fulfill in the Kingdom of God.
PROPHECY
If thou shalt be faithful to gather thy little ones round about thee, and thou shalt teach them My law, behold, I shall remember thy children, and I shall bless them (Deuteronomy 4:10; 11:18–21). And thou, too, shalt be blessed, for thou shalt behold how thy heart shall be made glad. Thou shalt teach thy little ones, and they shall grow up and they shall teach My Word to others; and it shall cause thine heart to rejoice as thou shalt send them forth and they shall bless others.
Behold, how the Lord thy God has dealt with His people to teach them and instruct them in the way that they should go; and upon them hath He laid the burden that they shall instruct their little ones also to follow in the way of the Lord. Can a man stand in the house of the Lord and be an elder over the people of the Lord, or a deacon unto the house of God, if he does not have his own household in subjection? (I Timothy 3:4–5, 12; Titus 1:5–6.) It is because the Lord seeth that surely these things are more than a matter of family discipline. For where the Word of God is taught, behold, where the Word of the Lord doth abound, there doth the Lord bless that household and cause His grace to rest upon it; and all of them are instructed in the ways of the Lord, and their hearts are submissive unto the Lord. But where the Word of God is not found, can that one lead others in the way of the Lord when he knoweth it not himself? Yea, the Lord would lay upon thine heart this day that thou shalt be obedient to all that the Lord shall speak unto thine heart.
The prophet Eli was rejected and had no place to minister in the presence of the Lord, and his generation was cut off after him, because when his children made themselves vile he restrained them not (I Samuel 3:12–14). The Words that God did give him in his latter end were Words of judgment. Behold, how his latter days were troubled. So arise and walk in the Words that God has given thee; for thou shalt be judged by every Word that thou hast received, if thou walk not in it. If thou shalt diligently hearken unto the Words that the Lord speaketh unto thee, if thou shalt meditate upon His Word day and night, if thou shalt have grace to perform His Word and to walk according to all the precepts that He teaches thee, then shall thy way have success (Joshua 1:8). If thou shalt meditate upon the Word and give thyself wholly to it, the grace of God will come forth in thy life and others will be blessed by it.
But his delight is in the law of Jehovah; and on his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also doth not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:2–3, ASV.
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate thereon day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Joshua 1:8, ASV.
Set thine heart and thine affection more upon the Word the Lord doth speak than on the collection of material things about thee. For all of these things shall perish; but he that holdeth the Word of the Lord, behold, he holdeth the treasure of heaven and earth.
Remember the servant of the Lord, Abraham, who walked forth at the command of the Lord (Genesis 12:1–5). Behold how he was rich in the promises of his God. He did not forsake the promises, but he hid them in his heart and he rejoiced in them. He chose to walk with the Lord, and he counted the Words of the Lord of great value to his heart. Did not the Lord bless him and establish him and his generations after him? He that shall hearken unto the Word of the Lord shall see good days in his latter end. With long life shall the Lord satisfy him (Psalm 91:16). Behold, his mouth shall be filled with gracious words that shall bless his brethren. His household shall be blessed, and they shall walk in the ways of wisdom and righteousness. When the Lord seeth that man, his feet shall be kept; they shall be guided in the way of righteousness.
Take heed unto thine heart that thou shalt not be a careless hearer of the Word of the Lord, that thou shalt not hear and go away from the house of the Lord and straightway forget the Word that came unto thine heart. Yea, doth not the Word say, “It is like a man who beholds his image in a glass, but he goes away and forgets what sort of a man he is”? (James 1:23–24.) Let the fear of the Lord be in thy heart; and when ye hearken unto the Word, when ye read it, when ye meditate upon it, and when ye speak of the Word of the Lord in thy house together, the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thy family. For behold, the blessings of the Lord shall rest upon the generations of the righteous that fear the Lord, unto the thousands of their generation. Where the fear of the Lord departeth from the heart of men, and they are careless hearers and readers of the Word of the Lord, doth not calamity soon come upon them? “Yea, it is a rod for the back of fools,” saith the Lord, “for they shall not be instructed in any other way” (Proverbs 10:13). If thou wouldest be instructed without the rod, yea if thou wouldest not be beaten with many stripes, then hearken diligently unto the Word that the Lord doth speak unto thee and quicken unto thee by the Holy Spirit, and walk in it. Behold, if thou shalt be careful to walk in the way that the Lord leadeth thee, shall it not go well with thee? The Lord shall cause thy light to spring forth (Isaiah 58:8), and He shall cause thy righteousness to be manifested; and the Word of the Lord shall be glorified and magnified within thee.