Loving God, Part 2

Parental Priorities

Moses instructs us parents that loving God is our first priority: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. But if a parent isn’t careful, his child’s athletic involvement may strangle his own love for God. When I have advised parents that it is O.K. to miss some of their child’s sporting events, some look at me as if I am advocating child abuse! But if your relationship with God is the priority of your life, won’t you occasionally need to miss a child’s ballgame to attend a retreat or your small group Bible study? If you always sacrifice those activities for your child’s athletics, what are you teaching your child? You can build your life around God or your child’s sporting life—but you can’t do both.

Sometimes a child’s athletics becomes the means a parent uses to fulfill his own passions. One father explained that watching his son play football “was almost like I was competing myself again.” Ouch! Parents, please understand: your childhood is over and your child still has his to live!  Asking your child to fulfill your dreams puts a burden on him that he is “too small to bear and too young to comprehend.”