I was in our living room and could overhear my teenage son talking on the phone in the other room. And I couldn’t help but notice that his mannerisms and his tone sounded eerily familiar.
They sounded just like me. Have you ever noticed just how much your kids mirror you in both small and big things?
As parents, who we are will impact our kids far more than what we say. This is why godliness needs to be our goal.
As Howard Hendricks wisely put it, “You teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are.”
This is also why it’s so essential as parents that we are becoming more like Jesus over time as we learn to live out the fruit of the Spirit in our daily lives.
Here’s a powerful principle to be reminded of today:
“You always become more of what you already are.”
Think about it. With children, they are in the process of who they are becoming for a lifetime. This is why as Christian parents we take an intentional approach to developing Christlike character in our kids at a young age.
But with adults, most of us are pretty well cemented in our ways, whether right or wrong. Have you tried to change another adult’s mind on something recently? How’d that go? 😉
This doesn’t mean that we can’t change, it just means that most of us don’t change. And for those who think they are just “coasting”, never forget—the only way to coast is downhill.
This is why people who are naturally negative or bitter about life will usually become more of those things as they age, becoming “grumpy old men” as some would say.
This is also why someone who is naturally kind and generous will also become more of the same over time. They become more of what they already are.
Here’s how John Mark Comer puts it, “Most elderly people are either the best people you know or the worst. You don’t meet many middle-of-the-road 90-year-olds.”
So, this begs us to ask the question today—“Who am I?… And what am I becoming?”
Is the person or parent I am becoming more like Jesus, and that will in turn become more of the same over time? Or, does the person I am becoming raise concerns about the future me?
“It’s not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you. You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations before they arise.” -Zig Ziglar
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Romans 8:29
Think about that! As a child of God, He predestined you to ultimately become more and more like Jesus over an entire lifetime. So in every way possible, GO BE JESUS to your kids today!
