Growing up, I loved going to the movies, and the more exciting the show, the better. I’m guessing most kids today would be bored to watch what we considered thrilling. We didn’t have the amazing graphics technology brought to entertainment in this age, but it still got our hearts racing and wanting more. 

Gratefully, once I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior I lost all interest in violence. Actually, it repulses me now, and I instinctively look away if confronted with things like that while in a store or restaurant. 

We are living in a time where big money is being made providing entertainment filled with inhumane violence perpetrated against people – human beings who are made in the image of God. “For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence” (Proverbs 4:17). 

What do you enjoy and allow as entertainment for your family (video games, sports, movies, TV shows)? Is there any violence in them? Consider what appetites you are instilling in your children for entertainment? “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth” (Psalm 11:5). Let that sink in. God hates those who love violence. 

How many times per child, per winter, does every dad call out, “Please close the door. We can’t afford to let our heat out and the cold in.” Children don’t naturally appreciate the money that it takes to keep a home warm during the winter and what it will cost to heat a home when frigid air is being allowed into it. Dads generally are very sensitive to things that impact finances, but how aware are you of what you might be letting in that can cool (kill?) the spiritual interest of your children’s souls?

My heart groans when I hear of the barrage of worldly influences that storm the hearts of children in this age, especially things they are told they can’t live without. Social media of all types, addictive music, dopamine-pumping entertainments, and computer games make TV and movies look like toddler toys in comparison. If that wasn’t enough, friends from church promote them so that every “normal” (worldly?) Christian young person MUST have them. 

Having a plan to deal with the soul poison is important, but are you practicing good soul nutrition for you and your family? My heart breaks when I hear of families who aren’t in the Word every day. Are you daily leading your family in the Word, not because you “have to” but because you WANT TO and because you love God’s Word! 

We are so blessed to have God’s Word in our hands. We have no excuse, (except maybe a lost heart) for not loving it and sharing it with our families. 

Psalms 119:
97 “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.”
113 “I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.”
163 “I hate and abhor lying:but thy law do I love.”
165 “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”

Even though our children are now adults, memories are still fresh of sick children during the winter months. Life with little ones can be difficult enough normally, but when you add illness, it gets more challenging. Homeschooling moms carry a full plate of responsibilities. Illness simply adds to it. Here are some thoughts about this. 

Thank God. “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). As you give thanks, God will use your example to help your children learn gratitude even in difficult situations. You could pray with your sick children not only asking the Lord to heal them but also thanking Him for the opportunity the illness gives for your child to learn to accept the hardship of not feeling well, to be thankful for good health, and to be patient.

Help your wife. Take alternate nights in getting up to care for the children. Make the dinner meal while she rests. Pick up household chores your wife might normally do but can’t while caring for sick children. Take time off of work to care for her and the children if she is really sick. 

Another consideration is when you have illness in your family, don’t take the sick ones to church. If you don’t like your children sick, why “wish” it on another family that you are called to love. “… Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (Luke 10:27). 

We drove through several neighborhoods listening to Twelve Voices of Christmas. It was very disappointing—not what we were listening to—but what we saw. The lights were technologically well done, in fact even a work of art, but instead of anything Christ-honoring (or even neutral), disco-dancing Santa Clauses were everywhere. If Santa was the focus of your Christmas, you would have loved it. However, I’m hoping that wasn’t true for any of you. 

We see the slide of our society further and further away from Christianity even evidenced in Christmas decorations. That should spur us on in our call as fathers. “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). There is no guarantee our children will be saved, but we must do everything we can to facilitate that. 

Brothers, we must surround our children with the truth of God’s Word and they have to see it lived out in our lives. “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).