A Blast from the Past: Loving Children

I was looking some old files the other day and I found this article I wrote back in 2006! It was used in the my old church’s magazine under the volunteer section. I thought I would post it here

The Importance of Loving Children

By Erik Davison 09/12/06

In our culture, children have been viewed as an inconvenience, a pain, something that just needs to be over with. As a result people have begun to treat kids as if they are unimportant and unwanted. So throughout the years this idea of thinking has elevated until it was made legal to murder unwanted babies. Abortion is the “politically correct” term we give that. I think it’s important to love, teach, and care for children while they are still young.

When the subject of childcare comes up in church, most people consider it to be the thing to volunteer for when you cant find anywhere else to serve. They may think all they’re doing is watching kids so someone else can minister to their parents (i.e. the real ministry is going on outside the nursery). Well that is one of the things you do while watching kids but did you ever consider that you’re ministering to the kids? The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Pro. 22:6.

How do you think Billy Graham or Mother Teresa got to be who they were? What about Britney Spears or even Adolph Hitler? Do you think they were born the way they turned out? No, they were raised in a way that affected who they became. Not just their parents but their friends, family, and peers helped them along that road.

When I look at kids I sometimes think, “Who will they be?” Then I remember that I have a chance to affect that, we all do. Just by taking a few hours of your time to help in the nursery or to baby-sit for a family you know, you are affecting the future. This doesn’t mean preaching to them, or trying to tell their parents how to raise them. For me it just means to love them and to be a good example for them, not treat them like they’re just something to be put up with.

So instead of being annoyed and inconvenienced by children, embrace them as a gift from God and as a chance to show His love to the kids so that when they are old, they will not depart from it.