PARENTS AND ELDERS are expected to impact lasting legacies on their children: they should not inherit negative habit from you. Jesus came to teach us the way to righteousness.”A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.” Prov. 13:22. When you boast before your children how you cheated other people, you are teaching them how to cheat too. Your children may not have patience to work for a living: they will tread the road for quick riches which the Lord condemned in Jeremiah 17:11, “Like a partridge hatches eggs it did not lay, is the man who piles up unjust riches. When his life is half over, they will desert him, and in the end he is nothing but a fool.” In April this year, the people of Oredo in Benin, Edo State were disappointed when Reuben (50) was brought to a Magistrate Court with his 16 year-old son, for alleged defilement of a 10 year-old girl. Why would a man teach his son to commit abomination? Children are to trust their parents to whom God has entrusted them. It will take extra ordinary grace for children who are inducted into crime to change from such devilish habit! If God does not intervene in the lives of these little ones so abused, they would increase and cause more harm to the society. Why would a school teacher rape his 16-year-old daughter for four years? Segun 52, and his brother Emanuel 42 were arrested in Ikorodu in December, 2017 for raping the young girl. Her father started raping her when she was 13. When the situation was getting out of hand, she reported her ordeal to her uncle who, rather than rescue her, decided to rape her also. “A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul; but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools.” Prov. 13:19. The girl told the police that her father impregnated her twice while her uncle impregnated her once. All the pregnancies were aborted. “Lord, if you should mark our guilt, who would survive?” Have they not destroyed this young girl’s future? God has not done wrong for giving Shegun a daughter. If your action should affect the society and the next generation negatively, God may not forgive you for destroying his people. Look at the case of Esau and his brother Jacob, see the role their mother played to enable their father bless Jacob rather than Esau his first son. In Ibadan, a couple has two children: the father loves the first daughter more than the second; his wife loves the second daughter more than the first. While the man was on official assignment to Jos in 2008 for three months, his wife and their last born nearly kill the first daughter. Will she ever forget the agony she went through for those three months? It may be difficult for you to love your children equally but you don’t have to publicize who you love most among them in any way. When couples fight each other before their children they give the devil the opportunity to create division in that family and the division will linger on to the next generation. In 2005, while a couple was fighting, their son helped his mother to beat up his father and that led his father to curse and expel him from his house. The little girls who could not do anything but cry during the fight told their teachers later that they will never forgive their mother for beating up their father. Are you in the habit of cursing your spouse before your children when he/she is away from home? Know today that such action will make your children to hate their father or mother whom you are condemning for a good reason or bad reason or no reason at all. You may reconcile with your spouse later but your children will not forgive him/her. When the cow grazes its young ones look on. Do not destroy the future of your children by setting them up against your spouse. On judgment day, what will you say to God regarding the evil activities you bequeathed on your children directly or indirectly through your carelessness? Why not examine your conscience today and be remorseful for misleading the next generation through your bad examples? We are in the habit of blaming the devil for our sins rather than plead for leniency with God and run to him like the prodigal son. God is rich in mercy and compassion, slow to anger and abounding in love. If you have misled your children or those placed in your care, admit your fault and beg for forgiveness. Cain was not humble enough to thread the road of humility when God asked him “Where is Abel your brother?” Rather, Cain said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Gen 4:9. - To be concluded next week! |
Copyright © 2024 Roman Catholic Diocese, Kano.