Only the Best is Good Enough-what your child deserves.

• How a boy like David, who grew up among sheep in some backwater pastures, ended up killing a giant? How, as a teenager,
he could even think of pitting his sling against heavily-armed Goliath when thousands of grown-up soldiers trembled In tenor?

• How he learnt to develop a heart that was after God's own heart? And who taught him the fear of God, and the love, power and grace of God?

• Who taught him to have a humble and contrite spirit that was quick to repent, yet was steely enough to withstand the days, weeks, months and years of hardship on the run from a vicious king?

• Who instilled in him a deep abiding faith and trust In God which lasted him a lifetime?

Or did you ever wonder…

When I reflect upon biblical heroes like David, Daniel and his three friends, Moses, Caleb, Esther and others, I always wonder how they became such people of faith. Sure, God had a divine plan for each of them, as He does for each of us today. But God worked and still works through people. Who did God use to mould these young, malleable minds and hearts?

Behind each of these great men and women of God, there was someone, perhaps more than one, but there definitely must have been someone. Not a Sunday school teacher, a pastor or chaplain, but someone who daily, moment by moment, weaved eternal truths into the fabric of their lives, so that they would slowly but surely take the shape and nature of their Creator. Preparing them for whatever He had in store for them. And that someone had to be a mother or a father. God works through people. In the lives of our children, the very first people He uses are their parents.

How Daniel, taken captive as a youth in a foreign land, could consider refusing the kings provisions on pain of death?

Who taught him to speak in such a persuasive and gentle way that the chief official agreed to give him his preferred diet?

Who nurtured such a disciplined and uncompromising spirit in Daniel and his three friends that they chose with steely determination to serve their God unflinchingly - in the face of lions, fire and persecutions?

Not Enough to 'Just Be'

I believe that David had God-fearing parents. Moses had God-fearing parents.
Daniel and his three friends had God-fearing parents. But that was not enough.

Each of these parents did something that would outlast their time with their children. Moses would be sent to Pharaoh's court to live in the midst of pagans, fully exposed to customs and practices that were directly opposed to God's values. Daniel and his three friends would be captured and exiled to a foreign land and taught to serve an arrogant king who considered himself equal with God. But because their parents did something to them before these things happened, they could grow up in spiritually polluted places, and yet remain pure and untainted.

What did these parents do?
They TAUGHT.

Because of what their parents had taught them, Moses chose to follow God rather than the fleeting glories of Pharoah's court. David learned to develop a heart so tender and dear to God that he became God's standard, His yardstick, to whom kings who followed him were compared. Daniel and his three friends refused to budge from their position, and pitted their deep reverence for God against the highest authority of the land, risking their lives in the process.

Because their parents taught them, these people could be used by God that much more easily. They became willing vessels of honour, clay that God could shape into His image. They could fulfill their calling that much more readily. Their parents' teaching blazed the trail for Cod to use them to leave indelible marks on the history of His people.

Know the Times

how did these parents teach? I believe the teaching was done systematically, carried out in season and out of season. Day in, day out. Relentlessly. With passion. They weren't perfect. They lived in difficult times. But they must have taught with an urgency that matched the uncertainty of the political and social climate of their times.

We are living in the end-times, on the threshold of Jesus' second coming. A country like Singapore may seem insulated against the turmoil and chaos churning in the region, but who knows when the tide may turn? Our children live in a time when the spiritual forces of evil seem to be escalating their activities at an accelerated and frenzied pace because their time is short and running out.

Who is teaching our children, and what? How will they go through times of extreme difficulties and trials? How are they being prepared for the times ahead? How are they trained to live life today? Will they become the shining lights that will attract non-believers? Or will they become casualties in the battle for their minds and hearts?

Not A Matter Of Choice

It may sound unfashionable in these days of outsourcing, but teaching our children is not an option. It is a command. God puts the responsibility of teaching our children squarely on the shoulders of parents. He gives parents no choice, and tells us very clearly and unmistakably in Deuteronomy 6:6,7:

These commandments that 1 give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Impress them... talk about them... Yet it is quite common to hear parents say, 'I prefer not to teach my children because I don't have the patience', 'I don't have the time', They don't listen to me, I can't teach well' and commonly, 'I prefer to leave it to my church's Sunday school - after all, we have an excellent Sunday school program!'

None of these excuses will stand the test of God's reckoning on Judgement Day. We are to teach our children - period!

God knows what He is doing. He knows what's best for us. After all He's our Manufacturer. If God wants us to teach our children, then we must be the best teachers for them. Here are some reasons why:

• We can give them the kind of teaching that they need:

available-on-demand, real-time, just-in-time teaching.

Provided, of course that we are available....and available on demand!

Little minds - and even not-so-little minds -cannot wait.

When a child has a question, she needs to ask It immediately.

She cannot wait till she sees her Sunday School teacher five or six days later.

For children, questions that wait are often never asked. I wonder...how many unasked questions does your child have?

• We can use the best method of teaching: role-modeling.

Our children see us all the time. We cannot hide our weaknesses and blemishes from them.

They see the good, the bad and the ugly in us. And they imitate us.

I remember visiting one of my students at home.

She had a disagreement with her mother and it was getting quite intractable.

As the mother raised her voice and shouted at her daughter, 'Why are you yelling at me?!!!

Speak properly and softly to your mother!!!', the child yelled back at a matching volume,

'I'm just speaking to you the way you speak to me!!!'

Our children are little mirrors. They reflect the imperfections in us that we would rather ignore or not know about. As we see our faults reflected in our children, most of us will hasten to correct ourselves before correcting our children. Being their teacher provides us with a means of feedback and self-correction, making us better people. No wonder Cod wanted us to teach our children - it kills two birds with one stone! Teaching our own children is actually enrolling for a full-time, fully-sponsored self-improvement course. A life-long course!

When my daughter had a great interest in rabbits, I could teach her a million things just by including rabbits - not just spiritual truths, but also academically.

When I taught her about our God-given callings, I could tailor it to her aspirations. Because I knew her dreams and ambitions, I could use them to illustrate how talents, gifts and callings operate using examples that involve her, and engage her fully.

When she kept asking my mother to tell and retell episodes of her escape from China in the midst of heavy bombing, I was able to teach her about the grace of God, how He saw my mother through the most dangerous times, and preserved her even though she was not even a believer at that point. It was also an opportunity to teach her that someone, somewhere in the world must have been praying for my mother!

• We can provide continuity in teaching.

There is no time limit and we don't have to finish a lesson within an hour.

If the lesson's not done when it's time to sleep, we can always continue the next day. And the next. Because of this, the teaching can be as complete as we want it to be. Or as long as our children want it to be. Which institution can give teaching like this?

• Our children are not afraid to ask us questions, because there is no face to save and no fear of ridicule. They can just be themselves and ask questions spontaneously. Asking question is the best way to learn and also the best way to teach. And when questions come from the child, the learning is tremendous because she would be immensely interested in the answer. It would be a very deprived child who dares not or does not ask questions. If our children quit asking us questions, then we must seriously examine ourselves!

Who’s Teaching Your Child?

I often ask the parents who attend my workshops, 'If you're not actively teaching your child, who is?' And they often say, 'No one.'

Wrong. If we are not the ones teaching our children, then they will learn from their friends. Or the mass media, the Internet, or the books they read. Are you happy with these 'teachers'? Do you know what they are teaching?

Will their friends teach them to love God with all their hearts and all their minds and all their might?

Will the mass media teach them to have faith in God?

Will the Internet teach them how to worship and praise God?

Will the books they read teach them to be unyielding to sin?

What do we wish our children to become? What are we teaching them so that they will develop in the right way? There's no point expecting our schools to do it. One parent recently commented, 'Why aren't the schools teaching kids to be honest?' If parents with two or three kids are not doing the job, why do people expect harried and stressed teachers to do it with forty kids? I'm sure they do try. But one teacher with forty kids and a heavy curriculum will have a minuscule chance of reaching out to a child whose own parents are not. I'm sure God knows that. So He commanded us to teach our own children. And not pass the buck.

Some Helpful Tips

A common complaint among many parents is that they have no time. Including no time to do things that impact eternity, like teaching. But my observation is that people who have no time to build up their children through teaching Somehow have to find time later on to try to re-build what as destroyed through neglect. Only this time, it is more painful. More costly. And more time-consuming.

How do people learn best? Here are some tips. For those with school-going kids, they apply to academic as well as spiritual teaching!

• A little a day is better than a whole load once a week (a case for not relying on Sunday school to teach your children the word of God!).

• Teach when the child is ready, not when it's most convenient for you.

When he is not ready, he's not going to learn, and no amount of teaching will make a difference.

• We learn best when relaxed and not under stress. Hurrying our children is stressful to them.

Find the time and give allowance for settling in.

• The best learning takes place when the teaching is not formal. The Bible puts it best:

teach your children when you sit down... at dinner; when you stand... waiting for the taxi or in the queue for tickets;

when you lie down -cosy up to your children on the floor, on the bed or on the picnic mat;

when you walk... at the park or the Botanic Gardens, on the way to school, while on holiday

(again, a reason for not leaving teaching to Sunday school!),

• We learn best when there is laughter... so loosen up!

• We learn best in adversity. When our children encounter difficult situations,

the tendency of many parents is to bail them out. That only deprives the child of an extremely valuable

opportunity to learn something no textbook can teach. Instead, teach the child what to do.

Teach him how to do it Then let him do it, and coach him.

I remember my daughter came home one day telling me how a certain schoolmate was making false accusations against her. We talked about how a person can do such a thing. At the end of the session, we concluded that this person was indeed pitiable: perhaps she lacked proper parental guidance or did not get enough love and attention at home. We talked about what we could do to help and not hurt the situation. My daughter then decided that she would pray for this classmate, for her salvation and for wisdom. She decided that she, and not the other person, should be more patient, and made up her mind not to answer back. In fact, the two of them are now good friends.

So what are you teaching your child today?

(By a godly Woman who is a teacher of God's Word and a teacher and trainer of parents)