Care for the Demanding

We had a Tom Cat named Boots, he is a roamer, we are not sure where or if he is at this moment.  We also had a stray, Little Bit, who adopted us and had two litters of kittens before she died defending the second set from a pack of stray dogs.  Of her litters of kittens, there is still one that stays around our house.  It is not a domesticated cat, it will not let us come near it and hides when it sees us.  However, this cat expects -- demands -- a bowl of food in the morning, and we feed it.  Admittedly, I get frustrated that this cat, to whom we have given ardent devotion in the form of free shelter and free food does not return that devotion by allowing us to pet or play with it.  This cat is far from its parents -- Boots would let you pick him up and carry him anywhere.  He liked to climb in laps and nap or just be petted.  Little Bit was wild when she came to us, but warmed up to us and would rub against us and came to the point where she would climb up in our laps if we were sitting on a step or on the ground.

This particular offspring of Boots and Little Bit remind me of a passage in Judges 2:7-11.  Here the penman records that as long as Joshua and the elders that were with him remained the people were faithful to God, but as time went on there arose a generation that did not know Joshua or those elders, and did not remember what God had done in delivering the people from Egypt, through the desert, and into a land ready for them.  This group forsook God for idols and did what was right in their own eyes.

Concerning this propensity of people someone said, "We are always and only ONE GENERATION away from apostasy."  Maybe that is why God told the people in Deut 6:4-9, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Parents we need to teach our children about God and remind them of the blessings that are in Christ.
Parents we must train our children to be godly in their lives while they are young.
Parents we should nurture them (lead them) in the Light.

What do you do to help your children become more and more like Christ?

Scott