Day 24: Consistency

Ever notice the consistency of God?

I notice it not only in the character of Christ (which is impeccably consistent) but also in the Old Testament. God reminds His people over and over again. He responds to them with the same patterns over and over again. He offers them second chances over and over again. He was faithful to them, even when they did wrong. I've been spending time in I & II Kings and I & II Chronicles lately and am just amazed by this. He continues to stay faithful to them, and consistent in His love, no matter what they do. It doesn't change.

I think sometimes as parents we feel like when our kids do wrong in some way, we no longer need to hold up our end of the bargain. But that belief couldn't be further from the truth. Our consistency and our response is all the more important when our kids act up or act out. How we respond is crucial. And I believe we are called to respond with grace, boundaries, teaching and praying. But so often we feel "excused" from acting in those important ways because our child messed up in some way (maybe they aren't responding to us how we think they should or are treating us unfairly) and it's like suddenly we throw out our responsibility to treat them in this way.

But again, it is so crucial that we don't respond that way. That we teach them someone can act in a way we don't like, or even in a way that's not right, and that that doesn't give us an excuse to suddenly treat them like garbage. We can teach them boundaries and how to enforce them (a skill they'll use their whole lives) - and even how to enforce them with the fruits of the spirit (like kindness, gentleness, self-control, patience, you name it - all the things we feel the least when we feel attacked or wronged by someone). It's go time and I'm deciding to work on that this month as a part of parenting toward Jesus. The times I LEAST want to act like Jesus I'm going to actively choose to MOST try to and maybe more importantly to MOST pray to...

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