Kid raising

10:00 p.m. Today's project was to teach the first session of our summer Bible study, 2 Samuel Chapter 13.

We had a brief review of Chapters 11 and 12, whose sections I titled "The Crimes" (King David commits adultery with a married woman and has her husband killed when she turns up pregnant); "The Confrontation" (The prophet Nathan confronts David and exposes his contempt for God's laws and his sins); "The Curse" (Nathan tells David that there will be murder and sexual degradation in his family from this time on);"The Confession" (David admits he has sinned against God); and "The Compassion" (God forgives David's sins and, although Bathsheba's baby dies, their son Solomon is loved by God, and will be a great king  in his own right).

In Chapter 13, we saw the unfolding of Nathan's prophecy when the king's son and Crown Prince Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar, and is subsequently murdered by her full brother, David's second son Absalom. These utterly undisciplined, overly indulged young men had none of their father's devotion and repentant heart. Matthew Henry wrote, "whereas grace is not in our blood, corruption is."
As you may imagine in a roomful of women, the most lively and Spirit-led discussion centered around the accountability of parents to God for the upbringing of their children! We recounted the way our parents, saved and unsaved, strictly disciplined us and kept us out of trouble through the completion of childhood, and if we did mess up, they certainly would never have tolerated it!! Isn't it interesting that in families as a whole, the principle of Hebrews 12:6-11 was followed until the last 25 years:

For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with us as sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten? For if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had earthly fathers who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they after a few days chastened us for their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening for the moment seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby.

In studying the shockingly violent history of King David's family, we cannot but reflect on the society in which we live today in America.  Absentee fathers sire 70% of the prison population; equally high rates of teen pregnancy, drug use, even suicide, can be traced to uncared-for, abandoned children.

Correct and discipline your children while there is hope, Proverbs 19:18 says. Love, nurture, correct and know your children well!

Lawless, damaged children are not all the products of absentee parents. An emotionally and mentally distant, self-absorbed parent may live in the same house as their child-even in a palace.