Raising His Glories

Anyone who has watched the Sound of Music to learn from it will understand the importance of balance in raising happy children who will be of benefit to themselves and the society at large in the future.

A disciplined child is good, everyone wants one but being disciplined is not enough.

Zombies are disciplined and so are soldiers.

Until you see the damage the mindlessly disciplined can do, don’t be quick to adopt it as the best.

Many soldiers are very indisciplined in certain aspects of their lives. We are not allowed to see that aspect but it shows the hypocrisy of “discipline”. It is mainly for show.

Pharisees are disciplined and so are religious people on the surface. The problem with being disciplined is how it affects your perception of the world. You assume chaos is bad and order is everything and you will be very wrong.

Children raised in a chaotic environment tend to be more creative and solution-oriented. Children raised in a very disciplined environment tend to develop a sense of fear and rigidity that comes with authoritarian leadership.

For all its discipline, the Military regimes remain the most corrupt throughout the world.

For all its freedom and chaos, Democratic regimes remain the happiest for nations to thrive under all over the world.

Raising happy children without care for discipline is equally bad.

Children tend to take a cue from parents as to how to live their lives and how to treat others.

If they are raised on pure pleasure without the adequate balance of hard work and skills development that discipline requires, they will most likely become delinquent over time.

To raise children right, there must be a balance between creating a happy environment and creating a disciplined mindset.

Your children must be your friends and at the same time, they must be your children.

Being friends means they will talk to you and play with you and share with you everything and anything.

Being your children means they will respect and honour you knowing they are safe and provided for without feeling any sense of entitlement and disrespect.

The parents who raised the generations before went all out for discipline to show their friends that they knew how to raise children who are kept in line.

Their children were religious, secretive, and had bags of emotional issues.

We had a landlord once who had eight children. A disciplinarian whose car horn sends all the children running to their room with the sitting room looking spic and span.

Those of us who were tenants in his house who would sneak into that sitting room to watch Bruce Lee videos in the 80s didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

How can a man arrive home from a journey and his children will not be jumping and wagging their tails? We all had to sneak out of his house through the kitchen as soon as he arrived.

I never want to be that kind of a father. God is not that sort of a father. His children were disciplined in his presence only. The first to get pregnant died at the age of 17 on the abortion table.

A “disciplined” environment is often oppressive and stifling.

The parents will be tapping themselves on the back saying, “We are doing a good job” until they realize their son or daughter has found freedom elsewhere and is fully exploiting it.

A pastor whom I respect so much raised his children the same way- a tidy home, a disciplined mind, and a content management mindset. They cannot watch TV because it is the devil’s box, read your book, school, study, church.

His daughters got to the University and became wild at the first taste of freedom.

One embraced witchcraft feminism.

The other would leave home to stay with an equally oppressive boyfriend who kept bullying and beating her because she had nowhere else to go. She didn’t want to return to her father’s house because the environment was a “do right only” environment and she wanted to be free to “do wrong” without being judged, so she stayed with the guy who offered freedom and abuse.

He got her pregnant, she married him and now they are divorced after he almost killed her during her second pregnancy.

You must allow your children to “do wrong” in the environment you have created for them.

They must learn from doing right and doing wrong.

They must learn correction in love.

Many mothers raise their children to see their fathers as the disciplinarian while they present themselves as the friend.

“I will tell your Daddy or I will report you to your Daddy” is heard too often in several homes.

Later the fathers complain that their children only bonded with mummy.

Nobody bonds with a whip; bonds are formed in friendship.

Both parents must learn to be both.

Don’t become too concerned about impressing people with how well you raised your children to the point where the children become damaged internally to impress you.

The Yorubas will say it is the one whose cocoa tree thrives and who claims to be a better farmer.

Discipline is good and so is happiness.

God gave us an atmosphere that gives us the balance of both.

Do you know how many carnally refer to GRACE as a license to be happy and free without consequences? In the same way, many believe that the law will keep a believer in line and stop him or her from becoming morally bankrupt.

God didn’t place any limitation on grace, he only added a third component which the law did not have. He added the Holy Spirit. He called Him the Spirit of Grace and Truth.

Compare any man or woman raised under the law with any who was raised under grace, you will see how the life of one is limited and how the life of the other is unlimited.

Take, for example, Apostle Peter, he was raised under the law and he was mentored by the Lord Jesus who was full of grace and truth.  He found it easier to relate with those who were raised under the law and difficult to relate with those who were raised as gentiles.

In Acts 10, he was sent to Cornelius, a gentile by the Holy Spirit. Instead of embracing Cornelius and adopting him as a brother, he stayed by Cornelius’s gate and preached the gospel.

Even after Cornelius received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and got baptized, he still wouldn’t disciple Cornelius.

In the book of Galatians, Apostle Paul had to call Peter out for his conduct generally towards the believers who were non-Jews versus the believers who were Jews. Apostle Paul called him a hypocrite.

Epaphras on the other hand was raised by Apostle Paul under the gospel of Grace He took the message of grace to Collosse and raised in the city believers who were known for their good conduct and sound judgment morally and spiritually.

Grace offers an atmosphere where believers can be spirit-led. Being Spirit-led produces liberty. The liberty of the Spirit promotes a transcendent consciousness, the mindset of “I am the more”

This mindset helps us to dominate the realms with confidence.

Nobody under the law was able to achieve this. Moses was never under the law; he was above it. He was the lawgiver and he was the only one who was able to do more by the Spirit and with the Spirit than anyone else before Jesus came.

Jesus was never under the law. He was above it as the law abolisher and in whom the law was fulfilled. He was able to do more with the Spirit and to those who believe in him he was able to give the Spirit without measure.

Discipline can raise all sorts; Grace can only raise perfection. To raise our children right, there must be a balance of discipline and freedom. They must be able to enjoy being children and also ease into adulthood without the burden of having forgotten how to be children at the right time.

White folks who raise children without the rod and Africans who raise children with the rod cannot truly say one system is better than the other.

Maybe the way white folks’ children talk to their friends is way too lax for many of the black folks to endure.

I saw a 10-year-old child telling his father, “Dad, are you deaf? Didn’t I just tell you I want croissants?” (We were all having Breakfast at a restaurant in Lagos)

I cringed that day but had to shake the African mindset in me away, it was a conversation between two friends. Who am I to judge that?

The African-raised child will say that under his or her breath but then smile and say, “No Dad, I said please, can I have some croissants?” In both cases, neither parent is right or wrong.

The first was a conversation between friends. The second was a conversation between a child and a parent. These roles are often switched between good parents and their children. Please let the children breathe this Christmas. It is not their business that the economy is this blessed at this time.

Treat them to the best, watch over them, and love them.

You are doing your best I acknowledge this. Fear not, they will turn out right.

-GSW-

PS: I was in Abuja with my children, and a friend saw them and said, “You are too strict on these children”

We met with another friend in Lagos recently and the friend said, “You are too lenient with these children”

Hahahaha!

Both these friends are not parents yet, so I told the two of them the same thing- “When you have your own children, raise them the way you desire but keep your nose out of how I raise my children”

None of us, regardless of how we were raised actually turned out better than the other in the true sense of it.

As long as we are raised in Christ and learn Christ, He makes all the difference.

For those raised outside of Christ, no matter how much they try, they are raising darkness.

That is all the difference God recognizes.

Are your children light or darkness?