Make It Easy to Keep Your Children Close
And how to never say, “I can’t be around you right now.”
You should enjoy your children’s company. It is a father’s privilege to take joy in his children. But many don’t, because they find their children annoying. Or they are tired of their children’s misbehaving.
And guess whose fault that is? The father’s, of course.
If you find your kids annoying, that usually means you haven’t consistently disciplined them. You have abdicated. You have behaved faithlessly. If you are not able to rest in the peace of your home, you have failed to earn that rest with the work required.
What’s worse, you have made it easy to neglect your children, to push them away, to make them feel unwanted. If your son is grating on your nerves, a parent will often push him away, saying something like, “I can’t be around you right now.”
If you don’t discipline your son, you are in danger of making this a habit. Your son will start to believe you don’t love him or want him around. He will start to think he doesn’t really belong.
And your son would be correct.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
Hebrews 12:6
Disciplining your son is not only training him, it is also protecting him from your own neglect. This is one reason why it is an act of love.
You want to take delight in him, and so, when required, you train him and rebuke him.
Do not deny your children this gift.