Mom Heart Moments #173

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

ONE OF MY GLORIES AS a mother was realizing that I had the opportunity to form the hearts and life habits of my children. Together, Clay and I had a never-to-be-repeated time to shape the faith of our children and to train them in godliness from their earliest years.

One of the ways we did this was to create a list of character standards for our home, family, and personal lives. Each of what we called “our twenty-four family ways” was backed with Scripture and a character quality definition. These became the language of biblical family values we wanted to instill in our children.

Clay was mostly responsible for the twenty-four ways and later turned them into a devotional and discipleship resource for families. Our 24 Family Ways included statements of biblical family values such as

1. We love one another, treating others with kindness, gentleness, and respect.
2. We serve one another, humbly thinking of the needs of others first.
3. We are thankful to God for what we have, whether it is a little or a lot.
4. We choose to be peacemakers, even when we feel like arguing.

There were also five days of family devotional outlines for each of the ways, which we would go through together as a family. Along with teaching our children the ways, we helped them memorize the Bible verse or passage for each way. We discussed the ways and used them as part of our discipline and training in the home, not only for confronting sinful attitudes, but much more for encouraging good ones.

What character qualities do you feel are the most important to pass on to your children?