Children’s Special

November 14 is celebrated as “Children’s Day” in India as a mark of honour to our former Prime Minister Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru who loved children. My meditation for this day in my one year chronological Bible happened to be Galatians 3 and 4, which excited me because it had lots of “children” stuff in it. It said we are God’s children by faith. It talked about Paul considering the Galatians as his spiritual children. It also talked about Abraham’s two children, children of the slave woman and children of the free woman. The former represents mere human effort in becoming children of God. The latter represents God’s involvement in our human efforts to become children of God. My memories then went back to my childhood days.

My brother and I were raised by our parents in a “pietistic” background. We never ever saw a cinema in our childhood days. Sundays were not mere Holidays but “Holy Days” too. Church, memorizing scripture , sumptuous lunch, resting together, singing songs from the “Golden Bells”- were some typical Sunday events. At a very young age, I was leading my own “Girls Fellowship” in the Sunday evenings. My brother had his own “Boys Fellowship.” These were children Christian gatherings which was conducted in alternate houses every Sunday. Children from other faith joined us some times. That is a typical reminiscence of my childhood Sunday.

My dad reminds us often from a  story in Jeremiah 35. It is about a family called the “Recabites.” The children of this family had followed for generations simple commands of their forefather, Jonadab (2 Kings 10:15-31). They abstained from drinking wine and from settling in cities.  In Jeremiah 35, God uses the analogy of this family’s obedience and chided the children of Israel who were adamantly disobedient to their father God. The first of the Ten Commandments which comes with a promise is to honour our parents, by obeying them. The promise is that everything will go well with such children and that they will enjoy long life on the earth (Ephesians 6:1-3). It is interesting to see that Jonadab reminds the same promise of “living a long life in the land” to his children (Jeremiah 35:7) as an incentive, when they obeyed his principles.

Children today need to follow the “contextual Christian principles” given by our godly parents. In my opinion if a godly parent says about abstinence from wine, watching films, observing Sunday as a “Holy Day” and commands such as these, a child has to simply honour it by obeying it.  However our human efforts in merely obeying parents, cannot make us a child of God. The overarching principle is to obey the commands of our Heavenly Father. To be a child of God one needs to be part of His family. One must be re-born into His family (John 3:3). How can one be reborn in the family of God? The Bible says, “Yet to all who received him (Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13) I am a child of God because I chose to receive Jesus. I obey my parents because the Word of God expects me to do so! This is possible because I love my God, His Word and my God-given Parents! Let us enjoy the status of being a "child" both to our parents and to our God.