Day 1 Parents Help Children Establish a Habit of Fellowship with God and with People by Communication
This lesson is about communication between parents and their children. Communication between parents and their children has been a big problem. Recently, I read some statistics stating that about 40% of children stop communicating with their parents by the time they reach junior high school. In elementary school, children communicate more with their parents because they are still under greater parental influence. In middle school, only 60% of children communicate with their parents. In high school, the percentage is even less, and by college, many children don’t communicate with their parents anymore.
When there is no communication, misunderstandings easily arise. When there are misunderstandings, Satan will send all kinds of negative thoughts and lies into people’s minds, such as doubts, suspicions, and dislikes, which can cause many problems and difficulties. It is not a spiritual problem, or a problem regarding the truth, but it is a lack of communication. The best example of communication in the universe is our God, our Lord.
The purpose of communication between parents and children is to help the children build a relationship of fellowship with God and with people. For this to happen, parents need to build a life of personal, private, and intimate fellowship with God (1 John 1:1-3, Song of Songs 1:2). Why do parents need to learn to communicate with their children? It is to help their children learn to communicate, both with people and with God as well. If you think carefully about it, if God’s will, God’s economy, is to give Himself to people, then how does He do that? It is through fellowship， that He gives Himself to us in the Spirit, so that we may have a connection and fellowship with His Spirit, and also with one another in the Spirit. So, in this sense, fellowship is a very important thing.
For this reason, if we, as parents, want to establish good communication with our children, we must first learn to communicate with God ourselves. We can communicate with God through prayer at any time, but I suggest that we establish regular times of prayer and fellowship with God. Set a time daily for yourself so that you can communicate with God. Through this regular prayer and fellowship, you will be able to pray and fellowship with God at any time. The second thing to practice is to establish good family time with children, and to set a fixed time for parents to have good fellowship and communication with their children.
As 1 John 1 says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life… That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” The apostles are an example of our fellowship with the Lord. The apostles first had fellowship with the Lord, and then passed it on and preached to us their knowledge of the Lord. Through this, we receive the Lord and believe in Him, and have fellowship not only with the apostles, but also with the Triune God.
In this sense, the role of parents is somewhat like that of the apostles: parents have fellowship with God, and also with their children. When parents have established good communication with their children, they can bring their fellowship with God into their fellowship with their children, and ultimately, bring their children into fellowship with God. As Hymn 571 says, “What a friend we have in Jesus!” In fact, parents should be like the Lord Jesus in many ways, except that they cannot bear the sins of their children. If a child sings, “What a friend I have in my parents! I can come to you with my difficulties!” That is a great success for parents.
Our God desires to communicate and fellowship with man. First, God put man in the Garden of Eden, and man had fellowship with God. Then, God made a counterpart for man, and there was fellowship between husband and wife. After having children, He brought in the fellowship of children. Therefore, fellowship is ordained by God and is something that God has desired very much since the time of creation.
From God’s creation in the Old Testament to God’s salvation in the New Testament, along with the preaching of the gospel by the apostles, fellowship is established between God and man. The fellowship of God and man is brought in through the fellowship of man and man. If there is no fellowship between men, God’s fellowship with people cannot be brought in, and God’s dispensing cannot be accomplished. This shows that fellowship is very important. It is especially important for parents to have fellowship with their children.
