• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspective on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content and
• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspective on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content and length. Thoughts or suggestions for future topics are always welcome. Next week the suggested topic is summer. The topic at the end of the column is for the following week.
Pastor Wayne Patton
Anahola Baptist Church
Children need our priority time. We have a limited amount of time to nurture children. We must not allow ourselves to be so encumbered with urgent and lesser things that we fail to do the greatest and most important things. There are five vitally important times in children’s lives that we should not consistently miss.
The first is mealtime. There needs to be several times a week when we share at least one meal together. A second important time is bedtime. It’s a wonderful time to share some Scripture and pray with each child. A third important time is after-school time. This is not always possible in this age of single parents and two-paycheck families. But as much as possible, it is good for parents to pick up their children at school and spend a little after-school time with them. A fourth important time has to do with getaways and vacations. A fifth important time is made up of those special moments in our children’s lives.
For example, Pastor Dr. Young some years ago received an invitation to the White House to meet with a few religious leaders and the president. He had been out of town during the week and between flights he called home only to discover that his son, Ben, had an important basketball game. The date coincided with the White House visit. He asked himself: “What’s really the most important thing here?” He called the White House, told them he wouldn’t be coming and had the joy of watching his son shoot the winning basket.
To give our children priority time helps us fulfill God’s instruction to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
The Baha’is of Kaua‘i
Children are the gems of our community and they must be carefully mined and polished so that their fullest perfection can be revealed. Children are born pure and without sin. But their purity is because of their innocence and not because of their strength of character. Therefore, parents not only have the responsibility to educate their children in the arts and sciences, but more importantly to carefully and lovingly rear them to develop virtues and moral qualities that will benefit themselves and their society. Discipline should never be harsh, physically or emotionally abusive.
As the first educators of the children, the following quote from the Baha’i Writings directly addresses mothers. Fathers, however, share equally the responsibilities for their children:
“Let the mothers consider that whatever concerneth the education of the first importance. Let them put forth every effort in this regard, for when the bough is green and tender it will grow in whatever way ye train it. Therefore is it incumbent upon the mothers to rear their little ones even as a gardener tendeth his young plants.”
Dr. James Fung
Lihu‘e Christian Church
The trusting, obedient, loving relationship between parents and children was the dominant metaphor that Jesus used to describe the relationship that God wants to have with all of us. Children are portrayed in the Bible as needing guidance, as being vulnerable, as being humble and unassuming. And therefore, parents, teachers, and members of the community need to exercise wisdom, compassion, diligence and tenderness in influencing children in their growth and maturity.
Children also have curiosity, eagerness and a natural responsiveness. And this is what Jesus was alluding to when he taught his adult audience about being spiritually open to God’s presence. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17).
Rebecca DeRoos
Science of Mind
practitioner
Sometimes we forget that we are born as children of God. There are no exceptions. One asks how could a murderer, a molester, a thief be called a child of God? It is what we learn in each lifetime that transforms us to something better. It may take many lifetimes, but it happens. We are encouraged by the verse in 1 John 2:25: “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.”
Within this eternal life we are given the gift of learning which may include both good or bad, just as a parent allows a child to try things first by himself.
Imagine being born as an adult without childhood. All the fun, challenges, hope, naiveté and the learning would be gone. God, Father, Allah; whatever you choose to call this grand Father of ours, raises us from childhood to adulthood for a purpose: To grow and learn and to finally realize we really are all good and all of God. First Corinthians 3:16 says it clearly: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
Topic for two
weeks from today
• Will you speak to us on elders?
• Spiritual leaders are invited to e-mail responses of three to five paragraphs to pwoolway@kauaipubco.com.
• Deadline each week is 5 p.m. Tuesday.
