Saturday, December 5, 2009

Some great books and resources for raising godly young men

Can I just say that I am loving the Vision Forum website and store. They are really bringing people back to the godly principles of family and raising beautiful girls and courageous manly boys. We just purchased some books to encourage conversations between my husband and our two sons about the value of work and godly principles. I have been reading through the one called Created For Work by Bob Schultz. It is so good and totally convicting even for me. We have so lost our calling in this world. We were created by God to work before the Fall of Adam and Eve and sin entered into the world. It is a blessing and a way God allows us to join with him in dominion and relationships. We so miss that in our society of get rich quick, lazy, selfish work ethics. We are also cheating our boys out of their dignity and preparing them for what lies ahead by letting them be slothful and unproductive as children. Their job isn't to play, it's to learn to work through play sometimes. Boys should be learning skills all through boyhood that will help them provide for their families and make good decisions about money and work. It's helping them to see their skills and using them to help others and in the process provide for their livelihoods.

Anyway, the books and resources are by Bob Schultz and there is also a series of videos on having godly conversations with your sons. Check them out at www.visionforum.com.

I have been convicted that we have not been diligent enough as parents in training up our boys for their future roles as providers, husbands, and fathers. They will be all grown up and the opportunity will be missed before we know it. Ages 6 and 8 are not too early to be having these conversations with our boys and giving them work to do to be assets to our family. When they are teenagers and these lines of communication will be vital, it will be almost too late to start building them if we don't lay the ground work for that now.

Anyway, thought I would share some thoughts with you on that.