When my son was young, about 12 years old, we gave him the coveted compound bow he had been pressing us to get him. On his birthday, he ripped open the package, promptly ran outside to set up a target and began practicing. He had been outside for a couple of hours, learning the ins and outs of handling the bow and how to shoot the arrows to the exact spot he intended.<\/p>\n
I stepped outside to take out the trash, when he yelled for my attention. \u201cMom, want to come try the bow?\u201d Knowing that aim was not my forte, I waffled, finally giving in so that I wouldn\u2019t dampen his excitement. Setting the target and coaching me on hand placement, stance and arrow release, he commanded me to shoot. Which I did, but where did the arrow go?<\/p>\n
A quick survey of the surrounding yard, found it quite a distance away but nowhere near the target. And, fortunately, far away from our other kids who had been watching and were now laughing hysterically! Needless to say, he never asked me to try shooting his bow again. Accurately aiming was not a skill I possessed.<\/p>\n
Reading through Psalms, I recently came across Psalm 127:3-4.<\/p>\n
Children are a gift from the\u00a0Lord; they are a reward from him.<\/em> Those verses impact how we parent, teach and cast God\u2019s vision for our kids if we want to raise them to make a difference for God\u2019s kingdom.\u00a0 Will we (like I did) randomly shoot and hope they land somewhere close to God\u2019s plan? Or will we spend this coming year honing our skills and weighing our priorities to raise kids focused on God\u2019s target of bringing the lost to Himself?<\/p>\n Here are three areas I see where we as parents\/grandparents\/teachers often neglect prioritizing with our kids:<\/p>\n God\u2019s grace covers those mistakes or lapses on our part, but grab your bow and take aim.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them (children)! Psalm 127:5<\/em><\/p>\n Source: Kidzatheart.org<\/em> January 2017<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When my son was young, about 12 years old, we gave him the coveted compound bow he had been pressing us to get him. On his birthday, he ripped open the package, promptly ran outside to set up a target and began practicing. He had been outside for a couple of hours, learning the ins […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":3281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nChildren born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior\u2019s hands.<\/em><\/p>\n\n