"Point your penis down, Buddy."
"It's O.K. You'll get it next time."
These are things I've said more over the last week and a half than I have in my entire life.
Joshua is toilet training now (Toilet training, not potty training. The word potty is like nails on a chalkboard for me for some weird reason). Training a little boy to use the toilet instead of his pants is a process. Letting him poop and pee in a diaper is more expensive, but it certainly is easier. It is easier at this age to let him continue acting like a baby in this manner than to train him to be a big boy. Maturity in this part of his young life takes effort on the part of Christine and I.
Joshua failed miserably for the first few days, but I am happy to report that after a week and half he's having more successes than failures even though he's not completely trained yet. He still has accidents and he still doesn't tell us on his own when he has to go, but he's so much better than he was the first days.
In the first few days when I didn't see much hope for him my wife had to remind me to trust the process and I'm glad she did.
How many of us parents put more effort into developing mature bathroom habits into our children than into developing mature spiritual habits in their lives?
How many of us live our lives in a manner that displays that where our kids crap is more important to us than where they spend eternity?
Put as much effort into spiritual training your toddler as you do toilet training them.
July 8-11 this year our church held a Vacation Bible School. Joshua just turned two in mid May so we weren't sure if he'd be ready to go as a student, but we sent him anyway. We wondered if he would get anything out of the class.
At the end of the week he brought home a Bible verse in a frame. The verse had crayon scribbles all over it because that's the peak of his art at this age. We were told that the verse was his memory verse for the week. So, Christine tested him to see if he knew it, and he did!
"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid;" Isaiah 12:2a
We had no idea that he was able to do such a thing. Wouldn't you know that he still has his memory verse memorized today. This VBS experience inspired us. We've begun doing a memory verse a month.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" Genesis 1:1
This is his verse for August and he has it down. But just like toilet training we had to go over this again and again. A two year old can't simply hear it once and have it memorized. We have to do it over and over. We have to find ways to get him to understand it. We have to put effort into it.
I don't write this to brag, but I am his dad so it might come off that way. I write this to encourage other parents to recognize that our kids are ready to be trained younger than we might think. Joshua and I do call and responses (a catechism of sort) with the definition of the Gospel or about how God created everything and loves us. These are things he's capable of learning but that we have to put effort into doing.
"Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6
"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 11:18-19
Parenting is not easy, but it is important. Don't miss training your children in the eternal even while you're bringing them up to use the toilet and brush their teeth and chew their food. Don't assume our children know something and don't assume they can't know something. Show your children Jesus today.
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