Celebrating life on a mountain walk; loving by investing time, providing beauty, and having fun!
“Mom, if there is one place in the world where I fit, it is in our family–wherever we are, whatever we are doing. It’s not about the place, it is about belonging to each other, “getting” each other, accepting each other, and celebrating life together. That is what I most miss about being at home.”
~an unnamed child in our home 
Every child needs and longs for a place to belong–
a sanctuary that gives abundant life and love and protects from all the evils that lurk outside the walls of that home.
Love should be the very air that our children breathe, the atmosphere, the foundation from which all other character is trained, from which all instruction comes.
Love, first.
So often, we want to just have life be defined by formulas to keep, rules to follow, neat patterns by which to live.
I even think many parents are suspicious about the idea of loving their children too freely. We hear the admonitions …
“Well, you don’t want to spoil them and flatter them too much!”
Jesus loved His disciples so well that they were willing to give their lives for His cause.
I am not speaking about false flattery. I am speaking of generous, committed, serving, sacrificial love–which was the basis of God’s love for us.
Shouldn’t it be the basis for our love for our children?
If we really studied, pondered, cherished, and applied the ways of Jesus’ love as it is shown in scripture, wouldn’t the way we parent–especially the way we mother– look different?
Why is it we apply scripture differently to our children than to anyone else?
If we were made for love, and if love is the foundational need in the deep places of our hearts, then knowing that our children have this need, should shape how we seek to influence them.
Jesus Himself said, “They will know you by your love for one another.”
Not only the world will know us as believers by our love for one another, our children will also measure and assess in their hearts the reality of God, by how much we display His love in our home.
How does this apply to the way we parent our children?
I have written out many verses from scripture on loving today. If these verses go deep into our hearts, penetrate our very being; if we ponder Jesus and understand Him, then we will understand that deep, abiding love is the culture around which our homes should be built. It is through establishing a “love culture” in our homes that our children will be taught what God is really like.
“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”
~I Corinthians 13: 4-8
“Love is a perfect bond of unity.”
~Colossians 3:14
“Love covers a multitude of sins.”
~I Peter 4:8
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
~Mark 12:31
“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.”
~John 13:14-15
“If I have done this to you,” (girding Himself with a towel and washing the feet of His disciples before He also died for them on the cross) “so you should also do this to one another.”
How do we model servant leadership to our children? How do we love that much?
It is what reached the disciples’ hearts, so that they gave their lives to His cause. Is this the secret to our influence over our own children’s hearts as well?
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
” ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
~Mark 12:30-31
Perhaps we are to love our children as much as we love ourselves; to lay down our lives for them. Jesus surely meant that it was the basis for relating to all people– not just others, but our own family!
“For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
~John 3:16
Are we willing to give up as much for our children as God gave up for us?
” … but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
~Romans 5:8
His love covered us when we were still failing, stumbling, wallowing in our selfishness. God, as our Father, saved us while we were still in our sin. What does this imply about us being parents to our own sinful children? That we show love while they are yet sinners.
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
~Romans 8:37-39
Is there any attitude or action that can separate your child from you, from your love, or is your love generous and consistent, forgiving, long-suffering?
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
~Galatians 2:20
This is the hardest–the giving up of ourselves as He did for us.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
~1 John 3:1
Love One Another Bible Verses
Romans 13:8 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”
Galatians 5:13 ”For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Ephesians 4:2 ” … with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love …”
1 Peter 1:22 “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart …”
1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
And so, in he next couple of days, before we proceed with the series on “Training Character,” ponder this issue of love–love must be the culture in which we train our children or all of our training will be lost on them, and we will be as a
Clanging bell.
Oh, may God teach us to love today, as we practice by loving our children. And Jesus, we ponder You to learn just how it is done.
Thank you Sally! A hundred times, thank you!
Sally, everyday God speaks to me through your blog. These are the things I have been writing in my journal and I know, for me, God is speaking. I want to serve my family without complaint in word (or body language), truly from the heart. I don’t want to be a fake and pretend to serve others when I won’t serve my own family in love. I truly believe that it starts at home. We are who we really are at home. If I can do it in love with my own family then I know God is truly changing my heart. Thank you for the wonderful post.
Love this, Sally! What a good reminder to do all of our training within the culture of love. I can forget that I need to look for ways to intentionally speak love to my kids in the midst of all of the training/correcting. I would do well to focus more on the former!
I’m usually a skimmer when when it comes to my RSS feed, but this post stopped me in my tracks. It both convicted and encouraged me and made me want to grab my Bible. I love my children with all my heart, but this, “all training must come from a foundation of love,” I get wrong more times than I’d care to admit. I believe in it wholeheartedly. It’s simple, but not easy. So I’m sticking with you through this character training series; the last thing I ever want to be to my children is a clanging bell. Thank you for the wise words and wake-up call.
“Why is it we apply scripture differently to our children than to anyone else?”
Such a great question to ponder and use to examine our attitudes toward our kiddos.
HI Sally,
Best wishes from very rainy Jerusalem.
Hope you and Clay will come for a visit one day.
שלומ
Samuel Martin
This post should be compulsory reading for every parent! Absolutely clear and wonderful. Thank you SO much! xx
LOVE LOVE LOVE
this post!!! 
Thank you Sally. I will print this post out and look up the verses. I woke up this morning thinking about how you tell us to look to Jesus and the way He loved his disciples. God was preparing my heart. It does make such a difference in how I love them. Jesus seemed to get a little frustrated that the disciples weren’t always understanding what He was trying to teach, but He didn’t yell or speak in anger. He was patient and explained things more simply. He served them. He inspired them by His life. There is so much to learn.
I want more than anything to create a Culture of Love in my home. Christ’s love.
Wow, Sally! You wrote about the exact epiphany the Lord gave me a few days ago: that I don’t apply most scripture to my relationship with my children. I had just read Ephesians 4:2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love”. I have read this verse a dozen times and nodded my head solemnly and said to myself, “Yes, I bear with my fellow Christian who is weak in this area or struggling in that place.” But the Lord suddenly confronted me with what it means to “bear” with my children “in love”: bearing with all their frailties and feebleness, their messes, their slowness (essentially all of the things that I lose patience with many times a day). And that my response should be gentle and humble, teaching and not lording over them. I am now reading scripture in a whole new light and can’t believe I’ve missed it for so long. Thank you, Sally, for expounding on this for me. You’ve been such a blessing in my life!
After a rough week with my almost 8 year old son, these words help remember what I know is deep down in my soul, my blueprint for mothering. But I’m struggling with this boy. His name is Nathan and I know Sally has an out of the box boy named Nathan also (that makes me smile whenever you refer to him, Sally). He digs in his heals and can be SO angry sometimes. He is insistant on his way and I run out of consequences that work so quickly. It becomes yelling and anger that get through to him and I so don’t want it to be this way. I doubt myself that I stopped using spankings (that never really worked anyway). I don’t want to miss the mark with raising this boy. I don’t want to raise him to not submit to authority. I believe the gospel starts with my kids but I also know he needs to submit and learn to respect. I can’t seem to keep both things going at once. Any ideas?? I’m kinda desperate (ha! pun not intended).
Thank you so much for this post and thank you for Desperate!
Sally, I’ve read several of your books and love your clarity regarding our roles and reasons for following our Lord. I’m desperate most days – crying out every day for God’s strength and wisdom are my norm. Thanks for encouraging me to continue. Thanks for encouraging me to lay a foundation of love.
Love and so encouraged by Mom Heart this weekend! Praying for the opportunity to attend the Intensive…leading can be lonely. Loving is non negotiable.
Sally, does your husband see raising children inbthe same way that you do? How do you help someone to see that discipline and punishment are not the same things, that love conquers all (including sin in our children) and that loving people is not showing weakness, but great strength? Feeling desperate …
Charlene,
I will pray for you.
I have felt desperate before in aspects of things, too. I would encourage you to pray in faith for these changes in your husband, believing that the Lord is going to do it. When doubt fills your mind, take up your shield of faith and keep praying and believing! I have seen the Lord do miracles in my own family. Praise Him! Don’t give up hope! I have learned to be gentle in my requests and insights to my husband instead of getting upset with him. Men who feel respected by their wives respond best to them. I guess it’s just like children who feel loved and understood by their parents respond best to them.