Children & Parenting

What Jesus Has to Say at the Onset of the 21st Century about… …Children & Parenting

“As a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him.” (Ps.103:13) Out of the mouths of babes & sucklings have I ordained strength, that I might still the enemy & the avenger. I will use the voices of children to shut up the Enemy. And ‘unless you become like a little child, you shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of God, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ If you could see as I see, you would know that those apparent & seeming burdens are one of the greatest blessings, treasures & privileges ever bestowed upon you. Children are a vessel of whatever you have the faith to fill them with. They are the incarnation of the verse, ‘According to your faith be it unto you.’ Have faith that they will become a blessing, that ‘Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them’... Start appreciating those arrows for what they are. Not mere useless, ugly & dirty sticks that are causing you nothing but trouble, but arrows, which, when combined with the bow of My weaponry & the skill of the Archer’s hand, namely Mine, can go further than you ever have or will... It’s another trick of the Enemy, to have deluded folks into thinking that kids are a burden. Open your eyes & look beyond what you see in the flesh! Look at My unlimited potential of opportunities! Despise them not, but seek Me for all I can do in their lives! ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me!’ Let them come unto Me & don’t be of a cold, harsh, cruel, unbelieving heart, just because you have been disappointed! Pick them up & take them back into your arms, & try again. Fight for them! Have a little more faith in Me, that I can do a miracle in their life, that they are My children, and I will lift them up. Pray for them, and I’ll show you what to do. Ask Me what you can do to bring each one back to Me! “Children are an heritage of the Lord,” and by rejecting this heritage, selfish people are forfeiting their heritage & their part in Me. Only the selfish dislike children. Children are a more important factor than many realize. They’re the fruit of man, although some have come to accept the concept that the fruit more worthy of bearing is their little colored papers... The love of money is the root of all evil, and if you consider money a greater & better fruit to bear than children, then you’re on the Devil’s track, not Mine! Your children will still be your heritage from Me, even long after the last bill of paper money will have gone down the drain. Welcome them with arms wide open, love them as I have loved you, and that love will never return unto you void. Even IF the Enemy gets a hold of them temporarily & twists & warps their minds & turns them against you! Let it be a test of unconditional love, like I have loved you unconditionally, even when you turned from Me. Forgive them as I have forgiven you and continue to forgive! Your children ARE important to Me, and they should definitely be to you! You should do the best you can for them, and you MUST be faithful in that which is not really the least: your little ones. Your little ones are of great concern to Me, and you can’t really be a good missionary or disciple if you’re a lousy father or mother. So go & learn what this meaneth: ‘I will have mercy, not sacrifice!’ Whatever sacrifices you may be able to make for Me as a missionary on some far flung field can't amount to much if you have failed those very ones I have entrusted you with... It’s all a test, My love, all a test, and transporting you across some ocean won’t make a great missionary out of you if you can’t even love those in your own back yard. I want you to show My love for them. They are your mission field... have you watered your little plants? Have you cared for your garden? Have you been faithfully sowing My seeds into their hearts? Is your sample such that your children would want to assume your life-style? Who would have thought that that child or that youngster could have turned into a brilliant mind, a shining light & beacon to many under your influence & tutorship? Who could have suspected that they were wide-open treasure chests, waiting to be filled with what you had to give them? I’m handing out a crown of great glory to those special few who had the vision, who were faithful, who led My little ones & guided them by the hand, who had an unselfish love to pour their own lives into those young & brittle vessels, often at the cost of giving up their own dreams & visions & goals they had for themselves. Praying is not only an essential part of love a parent should have for their child, but it’s actually the most important & effective thing you can and must do! A baby brings many new “burdens” in the form of a greater work load. But in My eyes, that babe may be the purpose you’re here for, for what else is life all about but learning to care for someone else, learning

to help those who are weaker? Soon it will turn out to have been the biggest blessing & richest source of rewards in your life you could have ever dreamed of. A baby is able to do nothing but trust that his mother will feed him & take care of him. A baby is a picture of perfect trust. You gotta be a baby to get a taste of that heavenly peace & trust & faith. Just trust like a baby! You must look into the future. When Abraham was alive on Earth, not many folks knew about him, comparatively speaking. He had his encounter with the king of Egypt & with maybe a few hundred or thousand others, but none of them were aware of who he was going to be. What I made him, I brought about through a tiny little baby. Something anyone can do: make love & have a baby. But it was something special I did, just like the Father did the most special thing in all history by sending down a baby... Sometimes the whole impact that tiny little baby had, that seemingly insignificant life of faith, is only revealed years, decades, or even centuries later, as is so often the case with people who are considered saints in the World: they're hardly ever considered saints during their life-time. I give you everything so that you give it back to Me. If you receive everything from My hand & thank Me for it & are willing to give it back to Me every time (like the picture of a parent playing ball with a toddler: the toddler has to be willing to throw or roll the ball back to the parent, otherwise it won't work...), then you'll eventually find out that this game works, and it's actually fun, and that there's a sense to all this give & take, even though you (the toddler) may not see it at first... Children are a factor you can't just ignore. You can't just ignore the little things, the little people and the details, in favor of a potentially big thing. I'm asking those who say they wish to follow Me, to keep straight their priorities and determine what's most important in their lives: their carnal (adult) children, or the many lost spiritual children of Mine, who might be lost forever in this life, just because you were so encumbered about with much care and worry for your physical children, who were My responsibility to begin with. You seem to be so afraid that I'm incapable or too heartless to take good care of those I have given you. Can you keep them from death? Can you keep them from prison, and the paths of darkness they have chosen for themselves in their lives? No, not by caring for them every waking hour of your life could you keep their spirits from wandering into the depths of darkness, if that's what their choice is. But I can. IF you will commit them into My hands, which will often mean, first letting them go out of your own hand & trusting Me for them. My ways are unlike your ways, and they're mysterious ways, and you don't always comprehend them. But does that mean that they cannot be good? Does that mean you know better than Me? Does that mean I have failed, I was absent or asleep when this or that bad thing happened? What do you know that I might have allowed them to be cast in prison to show you a glimpse of the countless captives in the prisons of Satan that you will never free? What if I have even allowed someone you know to die to show you a glimpse of the pain of the millions that are dying out there without the Words of life in your hands, that you and your children are taking for granted, and some even despise? What if they're out there in poverty, without a job, without money, just for Me to show you a glimpse of all the countless destitute & poor spiritually, who would long to be blessed with a fraction of the riches you've got? What if all those supposedly bad things you see Me allowing to happen to them are in reality good things that draw them closer to Me, that would wake them up from the error of their ways, if you would not attempt time and time again to protect them from My chastisements? That baby may only be a small source of noise & trouble in your life today, eating up your resources, and making you wonder what else it could possibly be good for, besides giving you trouble, but a look into the future with the eyes of the vision that I can give you, of what that baby can become one day, if you'll only rear it with the right kind of attitude, will give you a completely different outlook. My dealings with you aren't all that different from your dealings with your children. That's another reason why having children is such a blessing & one of the major purposes in life: there is hardly a better example of My relationship with you, hardly any better parallel which explains to you better how I like to interact with you, how much I love you, how I wish for you to learn to obey Me, etc., than having children. How much you get from Me is only limited by your own faith. The rule is simple: ask and it shall be given you. Those are the only conditions. You need to ask. You don't run after your child all day long & ask, "What is it you'd like now... Do you want this? Do you want that?" The best is not to spoil them too much, but let them ask if they want something. You can lead them in a certain direction, as to what the available options are, but they've got to do the asking themselves... usually. The Devil is always after the young, and their battles are often more intense than yours & it takes My kind

of sensitivity to tune in to them, to be aware of what's going on with them; to communicate with them about it & to draw them out of themselves, as a doctor would with a patient, so that you know what specific Word medicine to give them. Once you hear them out, show genuine interest & an effort to tune in to them, & concern for them, they'll open up & will be ready for your Word-based solutions, providing you're applying them to your lives yourselves. They'll only accept tried & proven advice. Ask Me to help you tune in to them, help you connect your hearts to theirs, to reveal to you what their particular needs are, to shine a light into the dark area, that question mark in their hearts & minds that parents & grown-ups seldom have a clue about. Once they'll be able to tell that you are genuinely concerned about them, their hearts & souls, & willing to sacrifice your time for them & to change things for their sake, they will also become more willing to listen to you and accept your solutions wholeheartedly. Come to Me regularly regarding the particular needs of your children, before problems occur, & thus prevent them from happening. You can change everything today, the way you look at them, their way of seeing you, your whole lives & interaction together. Being open to change is a key factor; being willing to change your sample. Few people recognize the extent to which the Devil is invading their own homes, lives & families. The younger a person is, the more the flesh "rules" them, and they see things with their carnal minds, not like I do. They think that physical harm is the worst that can befall them or their child, when in My eyes, the spiritual dangers, which draw them away from Me, are something to be much more concerned and alarmed about than the dangers of physical harm, which I often use to draw a person closer to Me. Abraham was willing to trust Me, that I knew better what was the best concerning his son, that My hands were the place he was going to be best cared for, even if I asked something as absurd of him as to sacrifice him unto Me. Evidently Abraham had enough faith to believe that even if Isaac would die, it would be better for him than what could have happened if Abraham had disobeyed Me. Now, modern parents are very, very far away from that kind of faith. They think they have to do all that is in their power to protect their children from any physical harm, danger or abuse, and if necessary, even to protect them from Me. They don't believe that the best place in the universe to place their child is in My hands, they don't have the faith of Job who said, "though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," and much less the faith of Abraham, who practically said, "though He ask me to slay my only son, yet will I trust in Him." Today's parents' faith is so weak, they scarcely even know that I exist, much less would they consider that I have anything to do with the rearing of their child. They consider raising their child the duty I gave them, but in their eyes, that duty does not include Me, or trusting Me for their children. They want to take it all into their own hands, just like they try to take their own lives and its substance & insurance into their own hands. They place their trust in money, instead of Me. But consequently, they also make grave mistakes, since they don't consult or seek Me about any of these things. They often fail & fall flat on their faces & wind up confused, wondering what on earth they might have done wrong. Some do apply genuine & sincere love, which cannot fail. But often they forget or don't know that to a child, love spells t.i.m.e., & while they're working half their lives away in order to ensure their family's physical well-being, they neglect the spiritual. You would like to give your children a treat that they can remember as something not boring, but that's because you want to appeal to their mind gear of "what can I consume today, so that I can register this day as a success of some kind?" It's that manipulated mind gear of constantly having to receive, unlearning the ability to give or contribute something and registering that as a success instead. So, in order to really do them a favor, you should not adjust to their mind gear and bend to their wishes, but you should instead seek for opportunities for them to learn from you, which will be useful preparation for the future. If you bend to their scheme, you'll just spoil them & render them unable to cope with life later on. Your kids have to learn to appreciate the little things & that they must give in order to receive, otherwise they're going to be lost later on, unable to contribute anything valuable to others, only selfishly seeking their own pleasure & satisfaction. They've got to do their part in order to feel truly satisfied in the long run, finding pleasure in giving and contributing their share to the workload, which is much more lasting and important than the fleeting little pleasures of consumption. If your child is giving you trials because of stubbornness, disobedience or laziness, you should ask yourself whether there's a chance that I might want to work on those same areas in your life. If they are causing you trials because you feel rejected or unwanted by them, you must ask yourself why. Often, children have a completely wrong concept of their father, quite similar to people's false perception of Me, their heavenly Father. Ask Me to show you what you can do in such a situation to rectify and perhaps correct their view of things a bit. But the first step is to get them to communicate. Ask Me what you can do, how to approach them in order to get them to confide to you what's on their hearts about you, why they seem to dislike you. If they give you trials because they prefer to spend their time with their friends to the extent that they hardly come to see you anymore at all, welcome to the way that I feel in relation to many of My children!

Often it's because someone else fed them negative information about you, similar to the way the Devil tells lies about Me. Other times it plain & simple selfishness, & they just know that having to face you would only convict them & make them feel bad about themselves. There is more truth to the verse that I created you in My own image than meets the eye. In a way, you're all little carbon copies of Me, just like children often are the "spitting image" of one of their parents... Sometimes your children feel resentful toward you because they think you neglect them & don't care about them, similar to the way many people think that I couldn't care less about them or I wouldn't bother with someone as "unimportant," which is really one of the standard lies the Devil spreads about Me. Others think badly of you at times, similar to when you're "at war" with Me for allowing "atrocities" to happen to you, when really, more often than not, it's your own attitude & distance from Me that can be responsible for such times of testing. Ultimately, fathers are ideal scapegoats. You can blame a lot of things on them that are going wrong, because they didn't do this or that for you, etc., or they broke this or that promise. That's why one of the best & most effective educational milestones in life is having kids on your own, because it will ultimately show you that you're not the perfect mom or dad either, and for once you're able to put yourself in your parents' or even My shoes! When you come to face it, that's one of the main reasons why kids can often give you trials: it makes you deal with your own weaknesses, failures, wrong attitudes, selfishnesses & everything that's ugly about yourself that you hadn't even realized until then. Having children reveals that you're not any better than your own parents at all, when you thought you were light-years ahead of them. And that process also moves Me a bit closer to you, because all of a sudden you can begin to see why I'm doing things the way I am, or why I allow this or that to happen... Things start making sense all of a sudden. So, those trials about being a parent, though the most painful of all they may be, are worth it! As unimportant, trivial or mundane as dealing with children may seem to some people, raising kids, and all the lessons that go along with it, is pretty much the epitome of the meaning of life. While some parents think they're missing out on life because of their kids, missing out on all the fun that singles or childless couples seem to be having, if you pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you in life, you'll actually notice that it's those others, who are missing out on a lot. Parents are leaders. Leaders are always envied, resisted, rebelled against, rejected, opposed & fought against by some people some of the time, but that's exactly the kind of adversities that make a character strong. So, if you thought your kids were robbing some of the value of your life, if they're making you feel worthless, like you're no good and you blew it, think again: they're actually the very factor that will accelerate your maturation, and increase your usefulness to others as a counselor, comforter, or person to trust & rely on, more than any other factor. Kids are worth it. Each of your children is a universe of lessons & experiences to explore, if you're attentive. They're your most dedicated students & also your best teachers, so, watch out! Pay attention! Don't miss those valuable lessons they're here to teach you! I'm teaching you to be a parent with conviction, not to take the (apparently) easier way to let your kids get away with things you cannot approve of, of letting them have their will against your better knowledge... Listen to the child in you! It says, "Papa's in control!" It doesn't doubt & criticize Papa the way children do when they get older & become adolescents. It's that childlike loyalty to "Papa" that makes children so precious in My sight, & the reason I'm so close to them. "Tit for tat" thinking is never any less justifiable than in the case of parents with their children. Your children are My jobs & tasks I have given you, primarily to love them, in spite of anything they might do, even though it may be difficult at times. Never withdraw your love from them because of anything they might do or fail to do, or you are going to be the one who's failing Me (and them). The same way I forgave you, I also expect you to forgive others, especially your children! Let it teach you to appreciate that unconditional love of Mine, to not take it for granted, to help you see what a precious gift it is, having to learn to come up with that same kind of forgiveness yourself for your children. You cannot just give up on them when they're failing you. They need you to be there for them anyway, to know that you're not giving up on them, to know that you've got something stronger, a foundation, a rock to stand on that will cause your love for them not to fail. They test you sometimes to see whether your love for them is really real, or whether you'll give up on them & dump'em in your mental trash can once they start veering from the path of your expectations of them. This is My job, My lesson, My challenge for you. The harder they are to love, the greater the challenge. Sometimes your children fail you, because you've failed to love them first! Your responsibility is to love them. And if the task seems to become overwhelming, I can always supply you with more love from My endless reservoirs! Maybe you didn't invest enough! Maybe you kept investing too much in yourself, your own career, your ambitions, desires, etc.

And as a result, they don't share your views, your interests, your love for the things you love, because they were what separated you from them, what distracted you from your responsibility and even your capabilities to love them as you should have... It's never too late for love! If you start concentrating & focusing on this goal the way you should, they will be eternally thankful for it. Your responsibility is to love them, no matter what; to uphold them in prayer, to not give up on them! No matter how much you fail or disobey Me, I never give up having hope for you, I never quit having faith in you, I never stop loving you, and that's what your attitude toward your children should also be. Look up to Me & learn of Me how to love unconditionally & how to never give up on your children! I have warned you that children would accuse and betray their parents. When they have made their decision against you and they hate, resist and reject you, then there isn't much more you can do for them but to commit them into My hand in prayer. They are your children for a purpose. But it doesn't mean that their ties to you are stronger or more significant than those with your spiritual Family, those who receive Me and are truly your brethren and children and parents, those who do the will of the Father, which is primarily to believe in Me, and believe in those that He sends to be His prophets and voices. Love them even if they oppose you. But once they cross the limit & make it clear that they've obviously chosen the opposing side and are against you, when it's clear that they've joined the ranks of those who would destroy you in self-righteous anger kindled by Satan, then you've got to leave them in My hands. Your responsibility to love them isn't something you're supposed to do without My help. Back in the days when children were still helping their parents in the fields in order to ensure the entire family's survival, long before child abuse and child labor were ever an issue, it wouldn't have occurred to children that their parents might not need their help! Of course, they needed their help; there was no question and no doubt about it! It just shows how things have been turned upside down, & how different, how contrary people's mindsets have become to the natural way I ordained for things to be. Back then, juvenile suicides were virtually unheard of, because there was never a question in their minds whether they were being needed, wanted or whether there was a purpose for their lives. Nowadays they think they're "enlightened" and have "progressed" & "evolved" away from those primitive days in which children were an essential part of their family. Just as you would find it wonderful if your child would come to you & ask, "Is there anything I can do to help you today?" & just as much as you would love it if she would develop a more helpful attitude, so, I would be thrilled if I could get you to develop an attitude that would cause you to look for opportunities, ways & possibilities in which you could be of help in order to further My cause. Just as much as you have to be on the ball with her in order to make sure that she does her share & learns to be a happy helper, so I have to be on the ball with you. Children are often touchstones & tests I bring into people's lives, of their levels of tolerance & love of fellowman, as all relatives are, except that you can't quite easily run away from your children. A lot of people do, eventually, but at least they're having to deal with that "mirror" of their ugly traits they didn't wish to face, for a few years, and a lot depends on how they deal with that. Loving your children unconditionally and without partiality, regardless of whether one is more "successful" than the other, or more "promising" than the other, and regardless of traits you would consider positive or negative, qualities you may like or dislike or that may even rub you the wrong way, is an important issue in life. It's part of learning to love like I do, and as the Father loves. It's something that takes time. It would help you to be more patient with yourself and others if you would remember that when it comes down to it, you're all just children. You're all just learning, like kids in school. Some day you're going to put aside childish things and become mature, and you will see eye to eye. Those who leave My school prematurely are the ones who get tired of My teaching, My curriculum, they play hookies and want to be their own teachers and masters. They didn't believe that I would help them to rise above any inability, any weakness that would hinder them to cope with the lessons and challenges I put before them. They didn't have the faith that My love in them could do the humanly impossible. When children become teens, the Devil really attacks them with a lot of doubts, because they want to discover their own view of things, and don't just want to see things through the glasses they were given by their parents. They want to make their own picture. While it's inevitable for you to grow up, and it's My will for you to become more mature, you should always keep your childlike faith in Me. The Devil will try to put a lot of thoughts into your head, which look "grown up", but in the end can be quite silly, and really only have the purpose to destroy faith and trust in Me. Many are doing silly things and are behaving in silly ways. In some ways it's really better and wiser to stay a child. Always remember the secret place where I want to meet you every day, where you can always remain a

child. It's hard to bear the rebellion, the disobedience, the defiance... it makes you want to close up and withdraw your love, your affection, yourself altogether. But that's where you've got to be strong and endure the contradiction of sinners against you as I did... (Heb.12:3). Even from your children, as I have to endure from My children. To expect from kids that they'll choose the better way from scratch just isn't realistic. It doesn't make sense to be shaking your head at their failures, saying, "They ought to know better." You either narrow their choices in order to reduce the potential harm they can do to themselves, or you realistically expect (from 6000 years of experience from history) that they're going to make the wrong choices like everybody else. And while they make their experiences that teach them to do better next time, you still let them know that you love and accept them anyway, that you pray for them and that you'll be there for them, should they ever need you. It's hard to stand by and watch how they're screwing up, how they're making the wrong choices, seem to develop likings for the wrong kind of things, open themselves up to the wrong spirits. But, hey, I've had to do it with you, and I think it's only fair if you follow in My footsteps and get a little bit of that experience yourself. That's part of the meaning of life and of maturing: to experience how God feels. And then to learn how to love and forgive the way God does. It's alright to let them know that you think they're doing the wrong thing. But you cannot just drop them like a hot potato & forget all about them & write them off in your heart & mind permanently: "That's it. They put themselves on the devil's side. I give up on them!" Those experiences, those choices to go the wrong direction temporarily will bring them back to My arms eventually, just as your strayings did for you. You must let them go and give them the freedom to make their own choices and experiences, but you must never stop loving them. You must let go of them in your mind, of your ideas and expectations of what they should do and become in order not to disappoint you. But you must not let go of them in your heart when it comes to loving them and always accepting them and letting them know you're there for them... even if you feel rejected by them. What should I say? Most of My children are mad at Me, too, for some reason, because they think I'm not there, that I don't care, that I always reward all the bad guys and the undeserving with the things My children want, but that I never give them... To love them even when they reject you, even when they have strayed from you and turned their backs on you, that is the art of loving unconditionally, like a true father, whose continuously conveyed message to his children is: "I will always love you." You can break the vicious cycle of rejection. Your attitude can be, "I will accept and receive you, even if you reject me. I will always love you anyway!" Sometimes years pass before your children show interest in you. Sometimes they never find out what they've been missing out on until they get over to the other side. It's pretty tough to resist the temptation of resigning to that fate of "they're just not interested..." But I know that My children do need Me, even if they may not be aware of it. The art is to arouse their interest. The art is not to withdraw in resignation when you see that they're not interested. The art is remembering, "You may not be interested right now, but one day you will, or at least you will wish you had been!" The art is in conveying to them, lovingly, "you may not be very interested right now, but there are certainly advantages to showing interest." Resignation never helps. If you withdraw and remove your own interest in them or any signs of your support of them, if you stop showing them your love or that you're somehow on their side and behind them, it will usually only push them further away from you, make them feel more unloved and rejected, and it's simply not conducive to what you would desire... that they will love you and come back to you. Sometimes you can do no other but let them go their own way, but it's always better if they know that you still love them, no matter what, just as I love you and them, too, no matter what. It wouldn't occur to anyone that changing a diaper would be a significant act in the light of Eternity or the coming Kingdom of God, but if you think again, you'll see that the selfless and humble act of caring for another helpless human being is very much something that prepares you for it. It's all about copying God and learning to be like Him, and changing diapers is something He very much does in a spiritual way all the time, when you've gotten yourself into a mess up to your neck, He always pulls you out of it again, cleans you up and gives you a fresh diaper, right? God has changed you and cleaned you from your own dirty righteousness and sanctified you with His simply by your act of receiving Me, His love-gift and Universal Power-Cleaner... So, get a change each day, and make sure you run around clean and fresh, bathed in My true righteousness, and not clinging to your own, old smelly version. You have to continue disposing yourself of your waste and getting clean before Me and through Me, flushed by My water of the Word, which I abundantly pour forth for you, as much as you need. God is like a loving Father and Mother who lovingly and smilingly change their baby's diaper... The Father loves to rid you of your old waste and make you all new and clean.

I hand you some situations for you to hand them back to Me, the way a father rolls a ball toward his child, expecting him to roll it back. That's the way the game works. After you've rolled it back to Me by committing the problem to prayer, and I've done what I can to improve the situation, I'll roll it back to you, and have you do a little bit of what you can. I bring out that hidden potential in you. The differences between your children are the factors of which consist a lot of the challenges and lessons in your life: to learn to handle each of them individually and take them where they're at. There's no standard procedure that works with all of them. You know basically, what everybody needs is love. But how do you apply that love with each one, individually? That is the challenge, and what makes life interesting. Isn't it wonderful, when there's a vacuum, a hunger, a curiosity, a desire to learn and know more coming across from your children? When there's receptivity, a space to fill instead of fullness, and the notion that they already know and have arrived? Isn't it great when they know their journey has hardly yet begun and they're open for your guidance and counsel, and they confide to you what's on their hearts, when they cease to be afraid of you and your opinion, of your judgment, and they just accept that you love them? Aren't you being stricter and tougher on your own children, too, than some other System brats? The ones whose behavior and attitudes you care about are your own children. Likewise, I care about you. What interests Me is your attitude. Having to face one's own sins and weaknesses in their children is very effective and purging. Sometimes the greater part of love is the letting go. You've got to let them go down the path that leads them away from you, when you want them close to you, walking with you. This present age is all about God letting His children go and walk their own path, away from Him, in order to bring them ultimately closer to Him. Their choices will influence you. But the extent to which you are willing to let theirs influence yours will again influence their future decisions. If you choose to remain loyal to Me most of all, and refuse to compromise and refuse to settle for any cop-out the Devil may try to lure you into, then they will respect that in the end, and it will influence their final decision, as to what they will dedicate their lives to. If they see that you'll easily trade your spiritual birthright, heritage and convictions for any little whim of theirs, only in order to please them, without checking in with Me, just so that you will have the personal satisfaction you gain from having made your child happy, then they won't consider your convictions worth very much, nor a path that they'd consider following. Soft-hearted parents can sometimes really make a mess of things that they can wind up seriously regretting. You make up excuses in your head, and reasons for why you should allow this and that and the other, and "it's hard enough for them as it is without depriving them of this fun and that one..." As well-meant as leniency may be, the result and the end of that road can be fatal. It's one of the Devil's best counterfeits of love. In reality, it's only the parent's own desire to be loved, instead of having to deal with a confrontation. You settle for the immediate reward of your child's gratitude and affection, but will reap hell for it later... Sometimes, being a parent is just a real tough job, and it's a real tough fight, a downright battle. True and successful parenting is for warriors, because you must stand up and wield the weapon of truth valiantly and faithfully, stand true to your convictions at every turn and be willing to take blows for it. Otherwise, the Enemy himself will conquer you through your child by his disarming techniques. He will tempt you with the promise of your child's immediate love and affection, in order to let down your guard, give him yet another inch, and another, like the camel's nose, and he'll threaten you with horrific visions of the loss of your child's love if you dare to be as "foolish" to be tough and hold up a standard that is true to your inner convictions, the convictions based on the laws and rules laid down in My Word. It's easier to build a fence at the edge of the cliff now, than a hospital at the bottom of it later: a firm fence of My Word that lays down the rules and limitations in their hearts, so that they won't go astray from Me. Sure, it's work. And you keep hoping, "Oh, maybe everything is going to be alright, and they're not going to fall at all... Maybe we shouldn't worry so much..." But then, if you have any experience with kids at all, you know that if there's a danger, and if there's something they're prone to fall into in all their experimenting and trying out the world, they're more likely to fall into it than not. It’s your duty as parents not to close your eyes to the danger and hope for the best, but to do what you can in order to keep the dreaded fall from happening. You’re probably not going to be able to build that fence without any protest from them: "But I don't need any protection! You're not granting me any fun and freedom! You don't trust me!" etc. And so you're much more prone to taking the risk. "Oh, maybe we'll be lucky!" It's true that the fence won't be a 100% safeguard and guarantee that they won't fall down the edge after all, and you figure, "Well, then what? All that work will have been in vain!" Well the difference will be that you will know that you have done what you could, and you won't have to hold yourself to blame for what

happened. You've got to do more than just hope everything is going to turn out good. Parenting and shepherding is a tough job, and if you want the kind of results from this job that you would like, you've got to invest a bit more than just some good hopes and a few prayers. The secret of families in the old days was necessity. The reason why they clung together through thick and thin, no matter to what degree individual interests may have differed, was that it was necessary for them, in order to survive. Kids in those days were not just asked timidly, "Oh, and would you mind helping us with the work out on the field today? That would be so nice!" - They had to, or else their whole family might not have survived the winter, and they might have starved. Necessity was the glue that kept them together, and that's precisely the stuff that's being eliminated from today's families and from society today. People don't need each other anymore. You cannot just let a child do whatever he or she wants, and whatever they're craving and feel like doing, no matter how "noble," how "democratic" and how politically correct it may appear in the eyes of today's society! You want to appear as "correct" in the eyes of your children in this aspect: "I never forced you to do anything you didn't want to." But the sad answer one day may well be, "Well, perhaps that's precisely what you should have!" "You should have stopped me from doing my own silly thing, and you should have been more pervasive in your efforts to get me to do God's will instead!" I gave young people all their energy not to be wasting it on selfish endeavors, but to invest it in helping others, those who they ought to show their gratitude to for having raised them, fed them and brought them through life successfully to this point. Kids copy the behavior and attitude they see in adults: if their parents only display genuine interest for things connected with their own little grown-up world, and the matters that they happen to be interested in, and show that they don't really have a genuine amount of interest in other things, such as "kids' matters," for instance, then it's only natural for children to adopt that same attitude of "you live in your world and I live in mine." Often, to their dismay, parents find themselves thus locked out of their children's lives when they reach adolescence, and they wonder "what happened?" It takes a lot more time, patience, attention and genuine interest in things that are different and the world of their children, in order to become good parents, than what most parents come up with. They behave a lot like adolescent kids themselves, when they are so much into their own world, the world of their own peers and things that interest them, unable to open their scope to things beyond that. Parents have to learn how to get onto the level of their kids. Most of the time they're trying to get them up to theirs, and teach them the things they know, but being a good parent goes both ways: you're not only teaching your child, but you're learning from him also. It takes time and trust to tune into such seemingly insignificant matters as a child's world. You can only learn and find out what your children need, by "stooping" to their level, so to speak, and finding out what occupies their world. It's natural that kids want to get away with the maximum amount of freedoms and liberties they possibly can. But it is your job as parents to set the limits and provide the security of borders that say, "Thus far and not further." By playing big "Mr. Cool and Liberal" you're taking away the security of the reins from them that pull them back, away from the danger zones. Those danger zones may look harmless to them, intriguing and enticing, but so does many a way that leads away from Me. You're there to offer a restraining hand and voice of wisdom that won't just allow them to slip into that dark and shimmering, false, black light of the Devil that has lured so many into darkness. You can help them make the right choice by making it extra hard on them to make the wrong choices. Spare them some of the pain by making it tougher on them to make the wrong choices. If you make it hard enough for them to make the wrong choices, then they will think twice about making one when they're older. Nowadays parents not only make it too easy for their children to make wrong choices, but they will often even encourage them to make them, because their own lives have been a path of wrong choices. Have the guts to be different. Am I granting you everything you might possibly want? No. I'm giving you all you need, but not all you want, including not all the liberties you want, because I know it wouldn't be good for you. I'm a wise parent. I know better what's good for you than you do. A wise parent knows better what's good for their child than he does, whether he might agree with them or not. That's not only your right, but also your duty as parents. The Devil‘s secret of success is his false, sugar-candy coated version of "love," love that knows no restraints, and permits anything, and lets them run right into their own ruin. Sometimes, love consists of the ability to say the word "no." Love isn't always saying "yes" whenever your child wants something. Love is saying "no" when they want something that's going to be bad, or even only "2 nd best" for them compared to the eternal rewards they're foregoing by not choosing the very best. Allowing them to make the wrong choices could not only be detrimental to them, but to all of you.

Things turn out differently than you may have expected, including your children. If life, including your children, isn’t exactly the way you’d want it to be, remember that things might not necessarily be all that much better for you, your character, and your ultimate outcome, if they were different, and that I know best what I’m handing you. If your child has some qualities or habits that seem to be extremely difficult for you to handle, let life rub them in so that you can really learn whatever it is I am trying to teach you through them. Maybe that’s precisely why parents get annoyed by their children’s undesirable traits: they’re a reflection of their own, and their pride usually makes it pretty hard for them to deal with that. Maybe it’s just My way of saying, “See? That’s what you’re doing to Me!” Your children are not only your most attentive students, but also your best teachers. Through the fact that “God repented Himself of the evil He had thought toward His children” you read about in the Old Testament, you can see that even God – as perfect as He is – actually learns through His children. There is an actual relationship going on, and relationship always has an impact on both parties. It’s not easy being a parent and watching your child run off to your enemy’s camp. You’re shifting from the position of the prodigal son to that of the father… a whole different range of experiences. When you’re young, the role of father isn’t really that intriguing, that interesting for you, it’s the most boring role in the story. But as you grow older and the positions are reversed, and you move from the role of the prodigal son – or the older brother, for that matter – to that of being a father yourself, you start seeing things with different eyes. Your position has moved from that of being one of My prodigal sons to having become the father of prodigal sons and daughters yourself, and in the case of some of your younger brothers and sisters who are yet more concerned about the affairs of this world, you have taken on the position of the older brother. What’s important is that you remember that you’ve been a prodigal son yourself, and that you can sympathize with the aspirations and dreams of your own prodigal sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, and don’t become self-righteous toward them, but as forgiving and welcoming them back with open arms as I have been to you. A teenager is an ideal instrument to let an adult know just how clueless and helpless he really is, for all he may think he knows. Here’s a situation you just can’t deal with in your own wit, your own effort to put two and two together, it’s hopeless, and your only hope’s in Me. Especially in this day and age when the Enemy is letting loose a legion of toys and temptations to lure them away from Me. I am Father of not merely one or two or three prodigal sons and daughters, but of literal millions and millions. I care for you whether you’re good or bad, just like you keep feeding your child regardless of whether he’s good or bad… It’s just some thing parents do: care for their off-spring, regardless. But whether we’re pleased with our off-spring is another question. We may love them unconditionally, but we’re not always necessarily happy about what they do and the way they act and behave… Millions of fathers are so preoccupied with their careers and accomplishments, that they neglect spending time with the ones they claim they’re doing it all for. They invest their energies and time in “being good providers,” but neglect the very ones they are providing for … The price of being a “great accomplisher” is often that of a father whose children say, “He was never there for me.” The price of whatever you accomplished was your absence from their lives. View that child not as your child, but say, as a “loan” from Me: My child that I’ve given into your jurisdiction for some time to see what kind of a job you would do taking care of her and training her in My nurture and admonition. Maybe the great mistake many make from the beginning is viewing anything or anybody as “theirs” in the first place. As My Word says, “What have you that you have not received?” And if people would apply that to the people they’re living with as well, maybe they would treat them with a little more respect, too. Sometimes all young sensitive people need and want is to be loved and belong somewhere. If they don’t really feel that their home and family is where they belong, then of course they’ll look someplace else… among their peers and friends, to find that feeling of belonging and kinship. The pain of having to watch them go the other way and forsake you – as Paul put it, “having loved this present world,” is an experience that I want you to go through as a sample of how I feel many times. It’s part of obtaining a greater understanding of My mind, the mind of God, and learning to not only see

things through My eyes, but also experiencing them with the Father’s heart. I don’t only want you to learn to see and think as I do, but also to feel and to love as I do, and the only way to achieve that is via the path of suffering and pain that you experience through these conflicts. To be forsaken by your own for the sake of the world is a very real experience for Me and the Father to deal with, and We would like to allow as many as possible to participate and partake in this pain to give them a greater understanding of Our point of view, and how we feel about it. It will also teach you how to love like We do: not just giving up on someone when you see that they are turning their backs on you, but to continue loving them unconditionally in spite of their choices and preferences for the world, even if it’s very painful. You may feel tempted to close your heart up to them and lock them out, but you know you just can’t do that. You simply have to bear the pain… And, like the father of the prodigal son, hope and pray that some day they will return to you, and receive them back with wide open arms, as I have always done with you. If children have an example of parents who constantly try to dodge the limitations I’m putting before them, then it’s no wonder they’ll wind up trying to do the same whenever they can… Sometimes, when some of your prodigal sons and daughters are on one of their trips into the world, you as parents can find yourselves tempted to become somewhat prodigal sons and daughters on your own again, too. Be it out of resignation or because you feel so strongly attached to them that you want to show you sympathize with them and their ways, or in defiance of the self-righteousness and lack of love of some older brother… It’s a test of your convictions, and whether you will stay true to them and keep Me in the first place in your lives and refuse to compromise, as well as of your love, to see whether you’re going to treat them in a self-righteous manner and become like the older brother toward them… Some tests serve multiple purposes. It’s also a test of your unity, and to show whether you’re going to stay united as parents over the issue, or allow the Enemy to use this to sow division between you. I want you to maintain a loving attitude toward them, even if you can see exactly the foolishness & futility of the path they’ve chosen. I want you not to judge them, even as I have not judged you. Experience will be their best teacher, even as it has been yours. You’re shaking your head at some of the things they do and wonder, “How could they be so stupid?” But one way they’re going to learn better is by making the painful experience of where it’s not at. You’re worrying, “But what if those experiences aren’t going to be painful for them, but actually pleasant?” Well, that’s where you’re going to have to pray that they’re going to make the right kind of experiences, and that I protect them from the deceptions of the Enemy. Right now he has that power over them, which is the lure of the unknown. Once they get to know what he’s trying to entice them with, just as Adam and Eve got to know the taste of that forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good & evil, it will have less power over them, and just as Adam and Eve weren’t closer to Me before, but after, so will they. I’m not saying that I would have recommended for Adam & Eve to eat of the tree. It’s just that basically, it’s inevitable, and people are bent on making their own experiences and they figure, the sooner, the better. After all, nobody wants to miss out on anything life has to offer. Just as it was part of My love for Adam & Eve and all of mankind to allow them to “screw up,” so it’s got to be part of yours. The efforts to protect your children from evil aren’t met very favorably at a certain age, and they perceive it as a lack of love, if you would interfere with what they consider their road to happiness.