Live Free with Josh Howerton - Footsteps in the Right Direction | Ep. 394 | Thursday, August 8, 2024

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

God calls parents to guide their children in walking the path of righteousness. By leaving your footprints heading in the right direction, you instill valuable lessons. Among these teachings is the importance of personal discipline—a crucial skill parents can impart to their children. It's essential that godly discipline is taught with both compassion and unwavering consistency. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive today. My name is Bro, and we have been talking about family this entire week. And as I said at the beginning of the week, I absolutely love being a dad. It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. So this week, I've just been sharing a few principles I've learned on the job for the past 40 years or so now about investing in our kids in a way that gives them roots and wings. And I know there are so many great parents who listen to this. podcast daily. And I also know there are a bunch of you who are not parents, but we are all family. And maybe some of these principles and some of these proverbs attached will help all of us

come alongside of each other and just spur on the next generation. Parents, let me say this to you. We've only got them for a little while. So here's principle number four. We've got to knock ourselves out trying to point them the right direction. To point them the right direction. I can remember walking down the beach one day on vacation. And our youngest son, Drew, was probably about four years old. He was following me. And I heard him giggling. And I stopped and I turned around and said, what are you doing?

He said, nothing. I walked a little further. I heard him giggling again. I turned around and said, what are you doing? He goes, nothing. I kept on walking. I heard him giggling again. I turned around and I caught him in mid-air with his foot in the air. I said, what are you doing? He went, I'm walking in your footprints.

And I thought, oh, man, he really is. Proverbs 411 says this, my child, I will teach you wisdom's ways and lead you in straight paths. If you live a life guided by wisdom, you won't limp or stumble as you run. This is a verse that says, walk in my footprints. This is like a dad or a mom sitting down with their kids saying, you know what, I'm going to make mistakes to be sure. But I'm going to do my best to walk the right direction. I'm going to do my best to be available to lead you in the right direction. I will do my best to model in front of you and point you toward a life that's guided by the

wisdom of God. That's my commitment to you. By the way, those of you kids, students that are listening to this podcast, if you have a parent that is that committed to you, let me tell you, you've got a great gift. A parent that cares enough to point you toward God, a parent that cares enough to set loving boundaries for you, cares enough to instill discipline in your life? I'm telling you, it's an awesome gift because no one has ever soared very high or lasted very long or achieved very much or run very straight without loving discipline in their life. It says this in Proverbs 1224, work hard

and become a leader, be lazy and become a slave. Like any questions? Parents that will really help in this giving them wings deal, if you will equip them early on with discipline. like a strong work ethic, good study habits, money management, leadership skills, how to treat your body, how to treat other people, good manners, the discipline of putting the pain before the pleasure, decision-making skills, conflict resolution, where do you go for wisdom, how to have a consistent time of personal worship and Bible study and prayer, the discipline of solitude and gratitude and servanthood. Proverbs 523 says, death is the reward of an undisciplined life.

Your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end. And so many of us know the truth of that verse in our own lives. And we greatly strengthen our kids' ability to fly when we equip them with personal discipline. And although they wouldn't publicly admit it, there's a sense of security when kids grow up knowing that there are limits and boundaries. Life without guard rolls, we talked about a couple of weeks ago,

it's a pretty scary thing. And parents have been called, by God to be the ones who point their kids the right direction and set up those loving boundaries. Proverbs 1918 says, discipline your children while they are young enough to learn. If you don't, you're just helping them destroy themselves. And for every kid that's listening, listen to this. Proverbs 10, 17, people who listen when they are corrected will live, but those who will not admit that they're wrong are in danger. So parents set loving boundaries. But do it. it like God does. With compassion and consistency, not by dropping the hammer because when all you

got is a hammer, you're just going to see nails everywhere, right? Ephesians 6'4 says fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the master. You know, praise goes a long way in everybody's life. It goes a long way in the hearts of our kids. You might remember the story of a lady who walked out one morning to get her newspaper. Remember those things? Newspapers? And this Labrador retriever was sitting there on her porch with her paper in his mouth. He had brought it up all the way from the sidewalk. Well, she patted him on the head and said, good boy, went back in to get him a treat.

She gave him the treat and went back inside. Next morning she goes out, there's that same dog with seven newspapers on her porch. Kids need to hear, good boy, good girl. Basketball coaching legend John Wooden was asked how he motivated his players so effectively. He said, I try to catch him doing something right. So give your kids praise phrases. Like, I never did it as well as you can when I was your age. You know what?

You get better at that every single day. I got to tell you, the way you handled that situation was absolutely awesome. I love to hear you laugh. You're not scaring me as much now when you drive. Just praise foundation that helps your kids know that they are good, capable people. Then when you do have to correct them, they know that it's not them that you're disappointed in. Just the behavior. But do your best to point them the right direction toward God and his wisdom.

And one last thing tomorrow, I'm going to give it to you, come on back. Hope you have a great day to day. I'll see you back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.

dot church slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out.