Example

Example

And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good deeds of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.

Titus 2:7

After urging (nagging?) my sons for many years to do things like brush their teeth, say please and thank you, and use their napkins at the dinner table, I’m pleased to report that I have no reason to remind them anymore—at twenty-six, twenty-four, and eighteen they do these things automatically.

There’s something very rewarding about seeing young children remind someone else to follow the behavior we’ve urged them to practice. I remember seeing this happen one spring day when Chad was three or four. We had just returned home from the grocery store, and Chad had a leftover piece of bread in his hand. While I was in the kitchen putting away groceries, I heard Chad start to cry outside. I ran to the back door and saw that the piece of bread he had set down in his wagon was now being carried off in the beak of a big, black crow! As I walked over to console Chad, he put his hands on his little hips and yelled up to the crow, “Birdie, what do you say?” I’m not sure whether Chad wanted to hear a “thank-you” or an “I’m sorry,” but clearly this crow needed to say something!

As moms, we are models, patterns, and illustrations to our children. The habits we display to them, for better or for worse, are the habits they will most likely adopt in their own lives. And then—sometimes in surprising ways—they will model those habits for others. “The first gift we can bestow on others,” wrote Thomas Morell, “is a good example.”

Father God,

Thank you for the Bible, which teaches us how to live with integrity. May we imitate you, so that our children will have good examples to follow. In the name of Jesus, amen.