General David M. Shoup, USMC, said, “If in this troubled world we can produce enough properly guided men, we won’t need guided missiles.” There is no greater need today than for more properly guided people. And the task of producing properly guided people belongs to the home.
Our homes are not merely to be refuges from the storms and vicissitudes of life, where we find rest and renewal. They are also to be places where young lives are bent, molded, and trained.
If our homes are to measure up to this responsibility several things are necessary:
1. A family example. Once a mother carried her little boy into the zoo. He was asking about each animal and when he saw some baby ones in a cage, he asked, “What are these?” The mother told him they were little wildcats. He then asked, “Why are they wildcats?” We know the answer. Their mamas and papas were wildcats. Usually children reflect their parents. Parents must be what they want their children to become.
2. A family altar. This is a time when the family reads the Bible and prays together. Too few families have such a time together. Many parents are so busy earning bread for their children that they forget that a child doesn’t live by bread alone.
3. A family pew. The most beautiful sight from the pulpit is a whole family seated together in a pew. The church service is not a convention to which a family should send a delegate.
Parents, give your children these things and you will be giving them guidance for life. The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).