If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)

Dorothy Law Nolte said, “Children learn what they live.” If a boy’s parents find religion important, they take him to church. If a pastor there stands and “talks to God,” a young listener begins to believe that what the preacher says is right and normal. If a family espouses values of kindness and joy and caring, the child begins to measure life by those criteria.

But the same is true in reverse. In homes of criticism and nagging, souls shrink. Among immoral parents, children choose self-destructive, uncontrolled ways of living lives of self-gratification. Influenced by a culture without religious values, the seeds of spirituality in young hearts die or mutate into something evil.

Jesus was warning parents and church leaders to pay special attention to children in the community. Big people make choices all the time, and they must live with the consequences, good or ill. But little people are brought to life or death by the choices that big people make. Little ones take their cues and their destines from the words and actions of role models around them. They can’t help it. That’s what it means to be a child.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:6 seem harsh. Wearing a millstone around your neck is no way to win an Olympic medal. But communicates that nurture children in spiritual matters are critical. Much of the thinking we see in hurting people today is the result of what was breathed into them as children by parents and teachers and community leaders. Morally, ethically and spiritually, many of these grown-up children are now “stumbling”.

By contrast, people whose marriages are centered in Christ and who model what they profess in daily activities have a positive effect on children and start them off in the way they should go. Then, as Proverbs 1:9 promises these wise teachings will be a garland to grace children’s heads and adorn their lives.

LET’S TALK

• What do we communicate through our lifestyle? What values are we displaying through mealtime conversations? Through our work and leisure habits? Through entertainment choices?
• What values do we wish to pass along to the young ones of our community? What will it take to make these values obvious to neighborhood children?
• How do we talk about God and church and religion? What do the children around us hear? What do they learn?

Hope this devotion will help us in leaving godly cues to our children and children around us!