If words were enough . . .
Sometimes it’s really tough being a little kid. You have so much to learn. God understands what that’s like. He sent His Son to prove it.
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood,
He Himself likewise also partook of the same . . .
Hebrews 2:14
. . . since He Himself was tempted
in that which He has suffered,
He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
Hebrews 2:18
Children need parents who are willing to do whatever it takes to teach and to train. Teaching and training that works must include two components: words and actions. Parents who attempt to teach their children with only one or the other limit what their children can learn from them.
When I was a young mother, I was in the presence of another mother (a much older mother than I; I’ll call her Leah) who was ready to leave the home where we both were visiting. Leah kept telling her three- or four-year-old daughter that it was time to go. I’ll call her daughter Amelia. The conversation went like this: “Let’s go, Amelia . . . Come on, Amelia . . . It’s time to go, Amelia . . .” The commands went on and on and on.
To myself, I said words I didn’t feel I should say out loud, something to the effect of: “Pick her up and go home!” It wasn’t that I was tired of visiting with her. It was just so tiresome to hear those words with no effect.
A child who hears the same commands over and over again with no action on the parent’s part to enforce them does not learn the peaceful lesson of obedience. Obedience is a peaceful lesson, after all. Disobedience is a tense state of being for anyone, including a child, especially when that child is hearing that he should do something other than what he is doing.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;
yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Hebrews 12:11
Our Creator, Who knows us better than anyone else, knew that we needed both words and action to teach us what He wanted us to learn. He sent leaders and prophets. He told us in words what He wanted us to learn, but then at just the right time, He sent His Son to take action. If words were enough, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come. When He did come, He acted and He explained. Neither action nor explanation would have been enough by themselves.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,
and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
No one has seen God at any time;
the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has explained Him.
John 1:14,18
I have a 4 year old and recently have been very weary by these same things. I’d think by the 3rd child I would have this down by now. LOL. Not so! Thank you for this message! I will pray to find the balance between instructions and acting and the proper actions. Thank God He is perfect and has ALL the answers!