God's Equipping of Parents

<p>Good morning, Five Minute Families. Do you feel qualified to be a parent? What do those around you think of your parenting? Are you equipped to be a good parent?</p><p>Maybe you are a teen parent, still needing to grow up yourself. Maybe you are a confused young adult who wasn’t sure you even wanted children. Maybe you are in a difficult marriage and children have further complicated communication and compromise. </p><p>No matter where you started or are on in your parenting journey, reality is that some stages of parenting are harder than others. Some folks think they are good with babies but not able to parent teens well. Others are the opposite.</p><p>And, no matter where you fall on the spectrum of natural parenting abilities or stages of child development that interest you more, God will see you through these parenting days if you will let Him.</p><p>Children are referred to as a blessing in the word of God; Psalm 127:3 states that they are a heritage from the Lord. Thus, if God has blessed you with a child, He has called you to be a good and godly parent, AND HE WILL EQUIP YOU TO DO SO. Joining the subject and verb of Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21, we see that “the God of peace…equips us with everything good to do his will.”</p><p>So, how will God equip us parents?</p><p>2 Timothy 3:16-17 states, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Just as we see in 2 Timothy, God uses Scripture to equip us. That means, five minute parents, to become good parents in the biblical sense, we must allow God’s Word to saturate our entire lives. We parents must carve out time for:</p><p>1. Personal Bible reading. One of our old pastors stated it this way, “The biggest transformer of a life is reading God’s word daily.”</p><p>2. Bible study which can be in the form of Sunday school, videos, organized lectures, or even commentaries and other books about the Bible</p><p>3.